Aquamarine: Untitled Because I Suck At Titles
by MISTER MacUpdatesTooRarely
Summary: Hailey moves to Australia expecting a less exciting life. That goes down the drain when she discovers that a local boy shares a secret very much like hers and Claire's, only with a romantic twist to it. Work-in-progress, updates maybe once a year 0 o
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

It's never easy being the new girl. Doing it more than once was no guarantee that it would be. Even after a whole year had passed, Hailey still didn't have anyone she'd call a real friend. True, there were the girls who let her sit with them during lunch and sometimes asked if she'd like to go with them to the mall after school, but she'd never taken them up on the offer, always making up some excuse about her mom wanting her home early. Maybe she just wasn't ready to make new best friends.

Not like she and Claire weren't still in touch or anything. They'd been e-mailing each other nearly every day since Hailey'd arrived in Australia, but it just wasn't the same as being able to hang out together. Though she'd never dropped hints or anything, Hailey could tell that Claire wasn't doing that much better than her. Dealing with bully Cecilia Banks was easier thanks to Cecilia's father Mr Banks, and the dreamy lifeguard Raymond had managed to convince _his _dad that college could wait another year. It just wasn't the same, though. There was no good substitute for a friend you could tell everything to and have sleepovers with. Not even the tall handsome blonde lifeguard did the trick, though it did ease the pain. On the bright side, now that classes had ended, Claire was coming to Australia to spend the summer with Hailey and her mom at their house. It was Tuesday today; Claire's flight left tomorrow morning, Stateside time.

And on a very bright note, there was Aquamarine, the bubbly blonde mermaid she and Claire had helped in her quest for love. The mermaid had last visited Hailey a month ago, but like Claire, she was also on her way over. Because of the distance she had to cross, Aqua's trip via swimming would take much longer than Claire's plane ride. According to Claire's last e-mail, Aqua had left for Australia three days ago. Judging by the length of the mermaid's previous trips, she'd probably arrive a day or two after Claire. Hailey couldn't wait for her best friends in the world.

Unfortunately, she had to, though only for a short while. In the mean time, here she was strolling down the beach and just wishing time would go by faster. Not many people ventured this far from the pier, and the few that did, aside from her, were asleep on the sand under beach umbrellas. The area of the beach she walked down happened to be at the foot of a fairly high elevation with a few houses several meters back. Trees were scattered along the ridge, providing some measure of shade from the sun. Hailey reached up and adjusted her sunglasses so that they sat more comfortably on the bridge of her nose. Her mom had said to bring a hat; Hailey, of course, hadn't listened, deciding that the sunglasses were enough. Aside from the shades, she wore a pair of cargo shorts over a bathing suit, a shawl draped around her shoulders and tied at the front. A pair of flipflops protected her feet from the hot sand. Behind the shades, her eyes were half closed from boredom. For a place with so many ways to kill time, there sure wasn't a lot to do. She pushed the big toe of one foot under a seashell on the sand and kicked it up into the air, catching it in the palm of her hand. Why couldn't distractions just drop in like that?

That was when a distraction in the form of a person did drop right in. A boy hit the sand right in front of her, flowing into a shoulder roll and coming up twisting so that he was facing her when he stood. "Hey Hailey." She recognized him instantly; Ryan Hardy was in most of her classes at school. He didn't have a lot of friends, but he was well-known as someone who refused to let anything get boring when he was around. He was a bit below average height and fairly good-looking, with his wavy dark brown hair and equally dark eyes. Ryan had also been one of the first people in Australia to talk to her; at first he'd spoken in a very convincing Aussie accent, but dropped it after admitting that he wasn't from the Land Down Under either. "Hey Ryan. Um, what was with the…" She let her voice trail off and nodded towards the ridge. "Oh, that. Well, you know, I just wanted to try climbing a tree," he indicated the one growing right on the edge, "and I sorta fell out of the branches." As if to make a point, there was a snap from above, and a tree branch about as thick as Hailey's arm dropped right between them. Ryan stared at it for a few seconds before suggesting that they move the conversation, "somewhere less prone to accidental whackage." He led her closer to the water, stopping along the way to pick up a couple of flat skipping stones.

"So what're you doing all the way out here?" he asked, cocking back his arm to throw a stone. "I could ask you the same question," she replied. "You could, but I wouldn't answer, least not until you do. I asked first." Hailey lifted one corner of her mouth in a half grin. "Just going for a walk." "Nothing to do?" he asked with a sidelong look, mimicking her amused expression. "Never is." "Oh, I wouldn't say that," he said as his arm whipped forward, sending the stone over the ocean. Hailey counted four skips. "So long as you're alive, there's always something to do." "Then dig a hole and bury me in it," she said, turning to continue her walk.

He caught up with her after she'd gone ten steps, probably having finished his stones first. "Come on, Hail." He was the only one so far to have given her any kind of nickname. Not counting "new girl," "newbie," or anything else of the sort, of course. "There's tons to do." "Oh yeah?" "Yeah." "Okay. Name one thing." Ryan laughed. "Ever been on a jet ski?" Hailey smiled. "No." "There's a first time for everything, wouldn't you say?"

***

Hailey screamed, her eyes squeezed tight and her arms locked around Ryan's chest. He didn't seem to mind; on the contrary, he was laughing his head off. The jet ski sent sprays of water up behind it, roaring along at high speed. Ryan turned sharply, almost putting the vehicle on its side. "Still think there's nothing to do around here?" he shouted. Hailey opened her eyes when she felt the jet ski slow down. "Should we be out this far?" she asked; the people on the beach were barely distinguishable. "I've been farther," he replied in a tone that sounded reassuring, but the words really didn't help much. "Can we _please _head back?" "Fine," he muttered, turning the jet ski around. They sped back to the small boathouse hidden behind some rocks. The structure and jet ski technically belonged to Ryan's parents, but they used neither one and so let him take the jet ski out whenever he wanted so long as he kept it maintained. He pulled into the boathouse and killed the engine, then waited for Hailey to dismount before getting off himself. He knelt and chained the jet ski to the wooden dock, then pulled the boathouse water gate shut. "Let's go get something to eat." "It's always food and fun with boys, isn't it?" "Occasionally we take to beating each other senseless for no good reason. So, food?" "Sounds good to me."

***

Over chili-n-steak sandwiches and lemonade, Hailey was finally able to learn more about the enigmatic Ryan Hardy. It was a well-known---but never publicly admitted---fact that nobody really knew anything about him; no one had ever even seen where he lived. Rumor had it that he'd never asked a girl out since arriving in Australia. Not that he didn't show interest in girls; his relatively close friends said that when pressed, he gave them names of girls he found attractive. Hailey couldn't help but wonder if her name had ever come up. "So you've been here nearly a year," he said, taking a sip of his drink, "and you still haven't made any friends?" "I've made _friends_," she retorted defensively. "Just not, you know, no close ones. No one I'd miss." "No one you'd miss if they died, or no one you'd miss if they left?" Hailey pretended to think that one over. "Either one." "Still miss your old town, huh?" "Well, how long did it take _you _to make new best friends?" The speed with which he answered surprised her almost as much as the answer itself. "Not long. A day, maybe two." "Really?" she asked skeptically. "Don't believe me?" "Well," she said slowly, gathering her words. "It just doesn't seem like you have any really close friends. I mean, the guys who sit at the same table as you at lunch are probably the closest, and I've never seen you hang around them after school." "That just means I don't have any best friends at school. It doesn't mean I have no best friends at all." "So who're your friends outside of school?" "Everyone's entitled to their secrets," he said mysteriously. "Come on," she prodded. He just shook his head and took another bite of his sandwich.

Hailey woke up extra early the next morning. On a whim, she grabbed a pair of binoculars before leaving the house, along with a bag of gummy worms for some semblance of breakfast. Something in her gut told her that if she could find Ryan, she'd learn exactly what he meant by not having any best friends in school. Claire's flight was leaving today---well, tonight for Hailey, morning for Claire---and for the simple reason that they were best friends, Hailey wanted to tell Claire about Ryan before she came over. To do that, however, Hailey would have to find out Ryan's secret. She walked for several minutes, popping a gummy worm into her mouth every three or so, before she saw Ryan. Like yesterday---and every other time she'd seen him, come to think of it---he wasn't dressed for the beach, wearing a pair of dark denim pants and a white t-shirt, with black shoes on his feet. She noticed that he had a bulging satchel over his shoulder; the shape of the bulge told her nothing about what might be inside. His pace was unhurried, but still gave the impression of trying to get somewhere as soon as possible. Hailey was careful to fall behind enough that she could duck behind a tree while some still lined the beach. It took a few more minutes of trailing before she realized that he was heading towards the boathouse. Clearly he intended to take the jet ski somewhere; the only other vehicle in the derelict structure was a motorboat that had definitely seen better days. But why the satchel and the secrecy if he was just going for a ride? Answer: he wasn't.

Ryan suddenly stopped and turned around. Hailey threw herself sideways behind a fallen log before he saw her. That proved it; he didn't want to be followed. She waited ten seconds, then slowly got to her knees and peered through one of the log's still-leafy branches. Ryan had resumed walking, though at a faster pace. He hadn't seen her, but his suspicion had still been heightened. Hailey waited until he was quite a distance away before getting up to follow, this time sticking to the tree line. She remembered the route to the boathouse, most of it, and decided to risk letting him get out of sight, then running through the trees. It would take him a few minutes to prep the jet ski, enough time for her to catch up and find a place from which to watch. Once he had disappeared around the large rock that hid the boathouse, Hailey stood and sprinted down the path between the trees, occasionally leaping over large roots, though these were few and far in between. Finally, she came in view of the boathouse and quickly dropped behind a boulder.

The back door was open; through it, she could see Ryan opening the watergate, satchel still over his shoulder. Once he'd done that, he knelt by a small trunk in the corner that she hadn't noticed the other day. From the trunk he took a length of chain with a small-ish hook on one end. He coiled the chain around one arm and pushed it up so that it hung on his shoulder. She watched with growing interest as he mounted the jet ski and fired it to life. He roared out of the boathouse. Hailey jumped to her feet and sped down the beach, keeping him in sight. She noticed that he wasn't going far from the shoreline, though she couldn't figure out where he was going. She was so focused on him that she didn't notice when the beach ended until she tripped over a rock. "Ow!" Hailey looked up; the sandy beach sloped upwards, turning into a slightly steep cliff. She realized that wherever Ryan was going on the jet ski, the only way to find out would be to get to the top of the precipice.

It was a much easier climb than she expected, even with her flipflops. Once atop the rock face, she stopped to take in what she was seeing. The cliff overlooked a magnificent cove; the emerald seawater sparkled in the sunlight, and a large rock shaped vaguely like an oversized armchair sat in the center of the circular bay. The cliff narrowed to a rock wall roughly a meter thick that curved around and left only one entrance to the secret bay. It was through this access that Ryan came on his jet ski. Hailey snapped back to her senses and dropped to lie on her belly, bringing the binoculars to bear on Ryan. The high elevation made her hard to see, and the camo-painted binocs blended in with the shrub she had taken refuge behind.

Ryan rode the jet ski to the armchair-rock, bringing it so close that it was touching the edge. He shrugged the chain from his shoulders. She noticed suddenly that a stone ring, just wide enough for the hook on the edge of the chain, sat right above the water level. Ryan hooked the jet ski to the rock; clearly he intended to stay for a while. He climbed onto the part of the rock that would be the backrest and made himself comfortable, apparently waiting for something. "What are you doing?" she silently asked.

Minutes passed, and still nothing happened. Hailey was about to get up and leave when she saw movement in the water. Something was making a beeline for the rock, and whatever it was was moving fast. Ryan noticed it too, but reacted very differently. Through the binoculars, Hailey saw him smile. A dark spot under the water grew rapidly; whatever the thing was, it was coming to the surface, and fast. Hailey held her breath; finally, some answers! A figure burst from the water, splashing the rock, though not Ryan, who was mostly shielded by the rock's high side. Sunlight glinted briefly off bright green scales, though Hailey had a quick view of what looked like hair. Whatever it was dove again so quickly that Hailey hadn't gotten more than a glimpse---but she already had a good idea of what it was. She pressed the binoculars so hard to her eyes that she felt the skin around them being stretched, but she didn't care; she _had _to know. Was that what she thought it was? "Come on, come on," she quietly willed…whatever it was. Ryan, she saw, wasn't the least bit surprised. _He was expecting it! _

Five seconds later, it resurfaced, this time at the edge of the rock. Hailey's heart leapt into her throat. It was a _mermaid_. Not Aquamarine, that was for sure. This mermaid's flowing hair was a deep brown, almost black even in the sunlight. Her tail was an emerald green. She wasn't as slender as Aqua, but she was incredibly beautiful. She was saying something to Ryan, probably a hello. She was strong; she didn't need Ryan's help to pull herself into a sitting position next to him, the tip of her tail still in the water. Ryan put one arm around her shoulders, opening the satchel with the other and talking all the while. From it, he took two wrapped sandwiches, a bunch of grapes, and a thermos. Hailey desperately wished she could hear what they were saying. It occurred to her that the mermaid was probably the first friend Ryan had made, the best friend outside school that he'd mentioned. It was probably why he maintained the aura of passive mystery around him; people who may have wanted to dig deeper couldn't really find any reason to do so.

The mermaid's hair began to shimmer, starting at the the tip and quickly moving up to her scalp. When the shine faded, Hailey saw that the mermaid's hair was now dry. "Neat trick," she whispered. Either she had more powers than Aqua, or Aqua just never saw a reason to show Hailey and Claire that particular one. Now that it was dry, Hailey saw that the mermaid's hair was quite lush and wavy, not forgetting extremely long; it fell to her hips, or where they would be if she had them. Some of it fell diagonally across most of her face, hiding one eye and continuing over the side of her nose and pale red lips until it reached the base of her neck. Her mouth was perpetually turned up slightly at the corners---well, the corner that wasn't hidden by her hair---giving the impression that she was about to smile. So this was Ryan Hardy's best friend in Australia. Interesting secret.

Ryan handed his friend one of the sandwiches, and she unwrapped it eagerly. Looked like she was a fan of landlubber food. Hailey focused the binoculars on the food; the sandwiches were filled with greens and some kind of meat, plus what was probably mustard. Ryan unwrapped his own snack as his friend bit into hers. Judging by her facial expression, the mermaid loved it. She chewed slowly and with gusto, a small smile on her face, the kind little kids put on when their moms buy them ice cream. Maybe Ryan didn't visit her everyday; it wasn't hard to believe that there were times he was too busy to come. Or maybe he just didn't make her that kind of sandwich very often. Hailey's stomach grumbled, and she suddenly realized how hungry she was. Gummy worms, no matter how tasty, did not make a good breakfast. She was torn between her need to eat and her desire to stay and watch. How did she know that Ryan would still be there when she finished eating? She bit her lip, thinking hard. It was possible that Ryan meant to spend the whole day with the mermaid, in which case Hailey could leave, have breakfast, and come back to the same scene. While she tried to decide what to do, Ryan raised the grapes to his friend's mouth and let her bite one off the bunch. Hailey's stomach grumbled again, only louder, and she made up her mind. She took the binoculars from around her neck and stashed them under the bush she'd been hiding behind. It was pretty unlikely that anyone else was going to show up anyway. Taking one last look at the scene below, she carefully made her way back down the slope, then ran for the food stores back at the pier.

Hailey took extra care not to drop her food as she dashed back to the cliff. It was a long run, and a bit difficult because of her having to carry a can of iced tea in one hand and cradling a packaged meal and a small sandwich in the other arm. She tripped twice along the way, though she managed to hold on to the food. "Please let them still be there," she whispered, then stopped to catch her breath. The cliff was already in sight, and it didn't look that much farther. Hopefully Ryan and his half-fish friend had stayed. The sand hadn't changed since she took off down the beach fifteen minutes earlier; there were only two sets of footprints, both hers. The boathouse water gate had still been open when she passed it earlier; it was a very good chance that Ryan was still at the cove. She scrambled up the slope, then dropped to a crouch and made her way to the bush. Her binoculars were still there. She set the food to one side and picked up the binocs, pressing them to her eyes.

Yep, they were still there. The sandwiches were finished, and only a couple of grapes remained on the bunch. She noticed that he'd brought out two plastic mugs and was sharing something from the thermos with his friend, who was leaning against him, cradling her mug in one hand. The fingers of her other hand were twirling Ryan's hair. Interesting. Not that she'd ever really had any close pals who were guys, but Hailey couldn't remember when she'd ever run her hands through the hair of a boy who was just a friend. They weren't just friends, then. That was even more interesting. How did _that _work out? Sure, Aqua and Raymond had a budding romance, but that was different. Wasn't it?

Well, whatever.

Hailey dialed up the magnification, trying to read their lips. The mermaid took a deep drink, then set the mug down on the rock. Whatever she said next must've been something real mushy, 'cause Ryan grinned the kinda grin people only put on when that someone special says something sappy. He reached up and brushed the hair from her eyes, saying something that was probably as sentimental as whatever she had said. Then he leaned over and kissed her. Hailey's jaw dropped and banged against a rock, but she didn't notice. The mermaid threw her arms around Ryan's neck and pulled him closer, a smile on her lips. Well, the part that wasn't busy otherwise. One thought entered and stuck in Hailey's mind.

"Gotta tell Claire." Her food forgotten, she dropped the binocs and raced for her house, almost falling all the way down the slope. This had definitely gone up on the Unbelievable Things That Happen During Summer scale, from Pretty Cool to OMG. It was a long run, and she felt like she was about to die when she finally staggered up her front steps. She could barely get the door open before she collapsed on the floor. It took five minutes for her to catch her breath, another ten before the stitch in her side went away. When it did, she quickly got to her feet and lurched into the kitchen, taking a pitcher of cold water from the fridge and quickly drinking it down, though some splashed onto her shirt. After that, she grabbed the phone from its hook on the wall. Her mom only let her call Claire in the States if it was urgent, but this definitely counted as urgent. Despite it being around 10:30 in the evening over there, she knew Claire would still be awake; Hailey herself hadn't slept at all the night before flying to Australia. The phone rang thrice before Claire answered. She didn't sound the least bit sleepy.

"Hello?" "Claire, it's Hailey. I've got _big _news." She heard something moving around; maybe Claire was pulling up a seat. "Shoot." "Okay, you remember that guy I told you about before? Ryan?" "Oh yeah, the one you said was kinda cute and really mysterious and you'd totally say yes if he ever asked you—" "Yeah, that one," Hailey cut her friend off. "Anyway, I found out why he doesn't have any close friends at school." "Really? Why?" "Because he has a very special friend outside school." "Oh, Hailey, I'm so sorry." Huh? "Now he's never gonna ask you out." "Wait, what are you talking about?!" There was an awkward pause. "That's not what you meant, was it?" "NO!" "Oops. Sorry. So what did you mean?" Hailey shook her head, though Claire couldn't see the gesture of annoyance.

"I got up early this morning and followed him to this cove really far down the beach. I don't think I'd've gotten there even if I was really bored and took a long walk." "And?" "It was really well hidden, too. You'd think something the size of a cove would be hard to hide, but not this one. It was surrounded by really high walls and it only had one entrance from the sea, and I think that was a pretty complicated entrance too, 'cause it looked like it was sort of spiraly and—" "Get to the point already!" "He has a girlfriend." "So? That's nothing big. Sad for you, but otherwise—" "A girlfriend with fins."

It took a minute for the words to sink into Claire. "No way." "Way." Hailey looked around and spotted a carton of juice sitting by the fridge. She tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder, then grabbed the carton and drank deeply. "A _mermaid?!_" "Bullseye, Claire-dy Cat," Hailey replied, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. "That's definitely a big secret," Claire said. "You sure about what's going on between them?" Claire didn't even ask whether Hailey was certain of what she'd seen. That was what Hailey really missed: the absolute trust one put in her best friend. She didn't have that now because, well, she didn't have a best friend anywhere nearby. "It's not Aqua, though, is it?" "Nope, definitely not." "And you've never seen her before?" "I've only ever met one mermaid, Claire." "Look, you know how Aqua can have legs during the day? Maybe this girl goes around in daylight looking normal." Hailey had forgotten that little tidbit of information. She thought hard, trying to place the mermaid's pretty face somewhere aside from the cove. If she went around as a human, she'd probably stick close to Ryan. She'd never seen him anywhere but school, though. Well, school and the beach. She realized that she didn't even know where he lived. "Don't think so, Claire. I don't see the guy around much, though, so I wouldn't really know." "Hmmm. That's interesting." "And we're going to find out more when you get here." "If this involves more breaking into beach clubs after closing hours…" "Don't be such a scaredy-cat, Claire-dy Cat. And no, no beach clubs." She heard a sigh of relief from Claire, which prompted her to add, "Probably his house." "Hailey, if I get arrested—" "Then I will personally break you out of whatever state penitentiary or dingo pen they put you in, okay? Relax. I'll think of something." "That's why I can't relax." "See ya in a few hours, Claire-bear." "See ya, Hail-whale." "If that was a comment on—" Click. Beep. "I'll get you for that," Hailey muttered as she put the phone back on the hook.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Hail-Whale my butt," Hailey grumbled as she took a bite out of the chocolate cupcake she'd bought on her way to where she now lay hidden underneath a pile of leaves. "I need the sugar. I need the energy." She wanted to think that she'd kept fit, but it seemed that all there was to do in this place was eat, something she'd lamented to Claire about. She closed one eye and looked through the telescope perched on a rock in front of her. Still no Ryan. She felt a sudden panic; what if Ryan didn't use the same path back? Something about him told her that he read enough spy novels to know a few tricks. Taking the same route every time didn't seem smart even to someone like Hailey who knew next to nothing about the world of espionage. After a while, she reasoned that a smart way to keep a secret would be to act like there was no secret to be kept. He'd stick to the trail because that way, no one would think he was trying to avoid being followed or something. Maybe she'd guessed wrong at how long he'd hang out with his girl. It'd been close to four hours since she'd seen Ryan at the cove, and she'd thought he'd at least leave to go buy lunch for himself and his friend. The bag he'd had with him wasn't big enough to hold two meals for two people. It made sense to her, but she'd been lying in the same place for nearly fifteen minutes and her body was starting to ache. Patience was not something she had in spades. She slowly rotated the telescope, panning her view up and down the beach. Her hiding spot was a little past the tree Ryan had fallen out of the day before, six or seven meters from a well-worn path leading to the beach from somewhere too far for her to see or want to. It struck her then that it probably led to Ryan's house, and she felt a momentary urge to get up and follow it to find out exactly where he lived. The moment passed, however, as she took another look and saw Ryan coming down the beach. And he wasn't alone. Hailey looked closely and saw that it was indeed the mermaid, though her hair seemed shorter. And she had legs, of course. Ryan had probably brought her the clothes; she wore a loose white long-sleeved shirt, a pair of cargo shorts, and sandals. She was definitely good-looking enough that _someone _would've noticed her, which made Hailey wonder where they were going. If they hung out in public, people would talk. It took her a few seconds to realize that he was probably bringing her to his place.

Hailey waited until the two were far enough down the path that they wouldn't hear her scramble out from under the leaves, which she did with no small amount of relief. She moved as fast as she could without making much noise until she saw the pair, at which point she slowed to a crawl. She tried to remember all the jungle warfare movies she'd watched, not that the list was particularly long. "I bet a 'Nam sniper wouldn't have a hard time with this," she muttered, being extra careful not to step on the leaves and twigs that carpeted the ground. Then again, a 'Nam sniper would've been considerably better trained and in all likelihood wouldn't be stalking a guy and his half-human girlfriend through the Australian wildern—wait, sniper? _The telescope!_ Hailey spun around, realizing that she hadn't picked up the telescope when she'd gotten up to follow Ryan. While the chances were pretty high that it'd still be there when she came back, she wasn't sure that she'd be able to find it if she waited until then, and it was worth fifteen bucks too much for her to risk losing. On the other hand, there was an even lower possibility of her being able to pick up Ryan's trail if she let him out of sight. "If this were a cartoon, now would be a really good time for those two shoulder guys to pop up," she mumbled. No such luck; she'd have to make the decision on her own. After a few minutes' thinking, Hailey bit her lip and made up her mind. The choice wasn't all hers, though; by then, Ryan had vanished already, so her only option was to go back for the telescope and either try to catch up or just give up; no _way _was she going to stake out the path again.

Fortunately, the telescope was still right where she'd left it, balanced precariously on a rock. She picked it up, muttering profanities that would've gotten her grounded for a week. Each. She sprinted back up the path; Ryan was probably too far to hear her running, so no sense worrying about it. "Aw, monkey nuts." The dirt path merged into a larger gravel one, along which sat the backyards of five oldish but well-maintained houses. Ryan's and the mermaid's footprints were clearly visible in the dirt, but vanished into the tiny rocks and pebbles that made up the bigger trail. The pathway went around the side of the house at the end of the row; it was probably meant to be used for dropping stuff off. Right then, however, its purpose couldn't mean less to Hailey. She stamped her foot angrily and bit her lip. Unless she actually wanted to go door-to-door and ask whether Ryan lived in that house—which she certainly didn't—this was a dead end. If she had insanely powerful eyesight, she could find their trail by following the extra dirt that had to be on the gravel, but while she was wishing, she might as well have wished to be back in the States.

She nibbled on the telescope's brass eyepiece when she abruptly hatched an idea. Each cream-colored house had two stories, plus what seemed to be an attic in each pointed roof. The first story of each house had one back door and a large window, three of which had the curtains drawn. All the second floors had three rectangular windows each; two big ones that were probably room windows and a small one that was probably at the end of the corridor between the rooms. There was a circular window at the very top of each house. Admittedly most houses had windows in such areas purely as decoration, but a quick peek through the telescope told Hailey that there was indeed a room behind each round pane of glass. She used the telescope to carefully scan each window for any sign of teenage habitation: stale pizza, pants thrown over everything, stuff like that. It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea what to do once she found out which house was Ryan's, unless she actually wanted to sit in the bushes and watch it through the scope all day. Crazy though her friends thought she was, she wasn't quite _that _crazy. When a better idea refused to present itself, Hailey shrugged and headed back down the dirt trail with more than a small amount of irritation. She definitely had to start thinking things through.

***

Not surprisingly, her mom wasn't at home when Hailey walked in through the back door. She dropped the telescope on a table by the door and headed up to her room, not sure what to do for the rest of the day. The two-story house she and her mom lived in was similar enough to their old one that Hailey didn't feel like she was just visiting, but different enough that she didn't feel quite as welcome as she should. Even after nearly a year, the place still didn't have that comforting feeling that made a house a home. What it lacked was _history_; her home back in Florida had so many memories of her and Claire that it'd felt like the only place she could ever really feel at home in. True, she'd lived there for much longer than she'd been in Australia, but the point remained. She couldn't even remember what it'd been like when she first moved to Florida, which had been close to ten years ago. Hailey flopped onto her bed, kicking off her sandals with a sigh. She looked around and sighed again. The room had been decorated in a fashion close enough to her old one that she felt more than a twinge of nostalgia. Sunlight and a cool sea breeze streamed through the two open windows, rustling the straw hat that hung on a coat rack by her door, upon which also hung her—no, she realized with a start. Her binoculars _weren't _hanging there.

They were still sitting atop the ridge from where she'd first espied Ryan's girlfriend. "Oh shishkamonkeys." Hailey rolled off her bed and ran down the stairs while trying to pull on her sandals. That wasn't such a good idea; she tripped and fell down the last three steps, but was up and out the door within seconds. Those binoculars belonged to her mother, and she was dead if they weren't there for her mom to see when she got home at five. Hailey tore down the beach at a speed that amazed even her, not once stopping to consider that five o'clock was at least an hour away. Sudden panic tended to override rational thought; it certainly was the case right at that moment. A stitch formed in her chest as she neared the boathouse. She clutched at her side, but didn't slow down, though she squeezed her eyes shut as she took gasping breaths.

Then she collided with someone who was carrying something that splashed the both of them. She went sprawling on the sand. For a few seconds, Hailey was too winded to do much more than stare up into the sky and pant. She didn't think about checking to see whom she had slammed into, but she didn't need to. "Not that I'm qualified to give sports advice or anything," Ryan's somewhat amused voice said, "but when practicing for a marathon, it's generally a good idea to keep your eyes open." Ryan, his hair and shirt sopping wet, appeared in her field of vision. "You okay?" Hailey nodded, still gasping for air, though not quite as desperately. Ryan held out his hand. "Up you get." She took it and he hauled her to her feet. "That's it, deep breaths," he said, offering her his arm to keep her steady. "I'm fine, thanks," she answered, noting that he seemed to be alone. On the ground behind him, however, there was an upturned bucket near a patch of wet, disturbed sand where he must've fallen. Ryan let go of her and wrung part of his dripping shirt, squeezing out some of whatever had spilled on him. From the footprints on the sand, Hailey could guess what had happened. Ryan had been coming from the boathouse, had stepped out from behind the rock right into Hailey's path. She wasn't sure, but Hailey thought there were only enough footprints for Ryan; where was his merfriend? "Track meet jokes aside, what were you doing running out here like your house was on fire?" "Would you believe me if I told you that it was?" "If your house was on fire, you wouldn't be taking the time to talk to me about it." "Point. I, uh," she paused, thinking hard. "I was—" "Ryan, I think you left—oh, hello." Both Hailey and Ryan turned to look at who had spoken. Hailey's stomach leapt; it was the mermaid. She had Ryan's brown satchel in one hand and an expression of slight surprise on her face. "I saw that you left your bag behind, and I thought I'd bring it to you." "Thanks," Ryan said, taking the bag from her.

She had a very pleasant liquid voice, as smooth and soothing as a calm sea. Now that she was up close, Hailey saw that she had deep green eyes, almost hypnotically so, and that she was about Hailey's height. Well, on legs at least. There was a streak of emerald green in her hair that Hailey hadn't noticed through the binoculars. "Hailey, this is Jade," Ryan introduced them. "Jade, Hailey." Jade flashed a very pretty smile, and held out her hand. Hailey took and shook it. "Jade is, ah, a—" "A friend," Jade provided. "Oh. I don't think I've seen you around school," Hailey probed, trying to see how Ryan would excuse the girl's mysterious nature. Hailey wondered if 'Jade' was even her name, though it was certainly more than possible. "Home-schooled," Ryan answered, though it was delayed enough that Hailey knew he'd had to think it over, no matter how quickly he had done so. "Oh, okay." Ryan seemed to have forgotten that he'd asked Hailey why she'd been sprinting down the beach. "Hey, would you excuse me for a sec? I've got a spare shirt in here, and I don't think I should let this one dry 'cause then I'd pneumonia, linger in the hospital for a few months, and die miserably." Both girls raised an eyebrow. "I mean, I'd better change." Hailey nodded her consent, a little excited at the prospect of being alone with the mermaid. Ryan disappeared behind the large boulder that hid the boathouse. Hailey almost asked how long Jade and Ryan had been together, but caught herself; it was too early in the game to reveal that she knew who—or more, precisely, what Jade really was. "So, how long have you and Ryan known each other?" Hailey inquired, having suddenly found a way to learn out more about the mysterious Ryan Hardy. Provided the mermaid answered truthfully, of course, though Hailey had no way to check the veracity of the answers. "Well, he moved over here about three years ago. I met him the day he arrived, and we've been friends ever since." "D'you live next door to him or something?" "Pretty much, yeah." Jade spoke accentless English, which Hailey found slightly odd. If Jade wanted Hailey to believe that she was a born-and-raised Australian, she had to know that there was no way she could sell it without the accent. Maybe she'd never been around anyone but Ryan and so had never even heard an Aussie speak. Hailey doubted that Australian merpeople—or merpeople of any nationality, for that matter—actually had accents. Before she could ask any more questions, Ryan reappeared wearing a new, dry shirt, his bag slung over one shoulder. "Hey, what say we head back up the beach and get something to eat?" Hailey almost did a double-take; was he actually expecting Jade to go with them and blow his secret?

"Actually, I should be getting back home," Jade replied, glancing at her wrist. Hailey saw she had a watch on, something she hadn't noticed earlier. Probably Ryan's; it was too small to be a diver's watch, so it'd be useless at the depths Jade probably lived. "My mom wanted me back by four," the mermaid finished. Ryan nodded, but his face didn't change. Hailey understood; Ryan's invitation was perfectly ordinary, meaning Hailey couldn't turn it down without making either him or his girl suspicious. While Hailey was away with Ryan, Jade could return to the sea. Her excuse made perfect sense, so questioning it would get Hailey nowhere. Left with no other option, Hailey nodded as well. "Hailey, it was nice to meet you. I'll see you later, Ryan." Jade headed back into the treeline. Hailey suppressed a sigh; she'd been hoping to find out more about Jade, but that clearly wasn't in the cards. She followed Ryan as he headed down the way she'd come, her mom's binoculars forgotten.

***

"I swear, you must have a bottomless pit for a stomach." Ryan swallowed the last of his fourth steak sandwich and took a swig of cola before answering, "Hey, I spend most of every day walking on the beach. I get hungry a lot." "No, _I _get hungry a lot. _You _are a certified Sarlacc." Ryan blinked twice, then leaned back in his seat and laughed. "I can't believe I've found someone who actually calls it something other than 'the big snake pit thing,'" he remarked, wiping away tears of mirth. Hailey smiled and sipped her soda; most guys who were into Star Wars didn't expect girls to know more than the names of the main characters. She hadn't pegged Ryan for a fanboy, but then again, there were a lot of things she hadn't pegged him for that had wound up being tossed into the trash. "Well, a guy's gotta eat," Ryan said as he stood up. "Gonna go get some fries to wash down the sandwich?" Ryan paused. "Actually, I was just gonna get more soda, but fries sound like a good idea." It was Hailey's turn to laugh. Ryan grinned, then headed down the boardwalk to buy more food. Hailey tilted her wooden chair backwards and put her feet up on the extra seat at their table. She sat facing the sea, her back to the path that led to the residential areas. She raised her soda can to her mouth and took another drink. When she put it down, she saw someone very familiar heading up the sand towards where she sat.

"Aqua!" Hailey practically jumped out of her seat and ran to give her friend a big hug. Aquamarine, the mermaid who'd changed Hailey's and Claire's lives the previous summer, returned the hug with enthusiasm. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you," Hailey told her friend as she let go. "Believe me, the feeling's mutual," Aqua answered, tossing her blonde hair over one shoulder. "You have no idea how boring some fish can get." Hailey nodded, a half grin on her face. "When did you get here?" "Oh, five minutes ago. Literally." Hailey led her back to the table and gave her the extra seat, noting that Ryan wasn't back yet. She only realized that Aqua was actually wearing clothes—a cream-colored summer dress with a knee-length skirt—when they were both seated. "Hey, where'd you get the threads?" "Florida." "You swam all the way here in that?" Aqua smiled. "Didn't you ever wonder what I did with your sweater when I wasn't wearing it, back when you and Claire were helping me with Raymond?" It had been a point of mystery which Hailey had eventually put aside, but now her curiosity was back. "You gonna tell me?" she asked hopefully. To her annoyance, the mermaid laughed and said, "You know how magicians never reveal their secrets? Mermaids are worse." Hailey pouted and gave her friend a playful shove. "You're mean." "And you ask too many questions." "And you should answer them." "Then I'd be an enabler." "Since when did you study psychology?" "I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met," Ryan's voice cut into their mock-argument.

He had come up behind Aqua without Hailey noticing, no mean feat considering the food he'd brought back. She couldn't understand how he was still hungry, but at least she knew what'd taken him so long. "Ryan, this is my friend Aquamarine. From Florida," she added. Ryan set down his food and held his hand out to Aqua. "Pleasure to meet you," Aquamarine told him as she stood and shook his hand. She was nearly as tall as he was, probably the same height considering that she was wearing sandals and he had on what Hailey suspected to be combat boots. "Pleasure's all mine, actually," came Ryan's courteous response. It probably was, too; Aqua was definitely pretty, with her sparkling blue eyes, long blonde hair, and charmingly innocent smile. Her willowy figure, accentuated by the slightly form-hugging dress, contributed as well. Not that Ryan was unused to gorgeous ladies; Jade was, after all, one of the best-looking girls Hailey had ever seen, whether in person or on TV. Even so, Aqua was nothing to ignore. Hailey felt a slight twinge of uncertainty, wondering if Ryan would even notice her with Jade—and now Aqua—around. Both Aqua and Ryan sat, and Ryan, being the gentleman Hailey now knew for sure that he was, offered the girls some of the french fries from his ridiculously large bucket. If Hailey ever wound up taking physics as a college major, she'd be sure to write her thesis on boy's digestive systems and the incredible similarity to black holes. "Have you been in town long?" Ryan queried Aqua. She shook her head. "Just arrived. Dropped by Hailey's, and her mom said she'd probably be down at the beach, so here I am." "First time in Australia?" It occurred to Hailey that Ryan sounded like he was investigating Aqua; she had a sneaking suspicion that he'd seen her before on one of her visits, which were sporadic enough that they couldn't be excused as vacations. Maybe she was being paranoid, but there was a fair chance Ryan would find out who—or what—Aqua really was. It wasn't like he was unaware of merpeople's existence.

"I've been here once or twice," Aqua deflected his probing. "Never for very long, though; you know, college and all that." "Right. I take it you haven't seen all the sights, then." "Well, I've seen the GBR." She probably had; the Great Barrier Reef was definitely easily accessible to water-folk. "How long'll you be in town?" Ryan pushed. "Oh, a while. Haven't made any definite plans yet." "Live for the moment type, eh?" "More or less." Hailey decided to let Aqua do most of the talking; the mermaid's people skills had improved considerably since she and Raymond had started dating. Still, Hailey made sure to keep one ear peeled in case Aqua let something slip. "Well, here's hoping you enjoy our island paradise," Ryan declared as he raised his Coke. Hailey realized with a start that he'd been speaking in his Australian accent, though he'd tuned it down a bunch from when she'd first heard it. It was still pretty convincing, though. "You live here?" It was Aqua's turn to ask the questions. "Guess you could call it that," came Ryan's somewhat cryptic response. "Not a native?" "Assuming your definition of 'native' doesn't include someone whose ancestors were exiled here hundreds of years ago, no, I'm not native." Both girls snorted, which hurt Hailey since she had been sipping her soda. Ryan definitely had a very quick wit. He'd also done it without dropping the accent, for which Hailey gave him kudos. If he weren't so obviously crazy about Jade, Hailey would've seriously considered going after him. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was almost five; her mom would be home soon, contrary to Aqua's little lie. She grabbed her friend's hand and stood. "Sorry Ryan, but mom wanted me back by five. Chores to do and all that," she excused them. Ryan simply nodded. "It was nice to meet you," Aqua told him as Hailey pulled her away. "The feeling's mutual," he called after them before going back to his food.

"So I'm assuming you really did just arrive," Hailey said to her friend as they walked down the path to Hailey's house. "That's what I said, wasn't it?" "And I'm assuming you didn't just come from my house, since my mom doesn't get home until ten past five." "No, that part was true." Hailey stopped abruptly and spun to face Aqua. "You're kidding." "Nope. She was there, and she did say you were probably down at the beach." Suddenly a wave of horror washed through Hailey's mind; the binoculars were still at the cove, the house was still mostly a mess, and…well, there were probably about a hundred other things Hailey hadn't taken care of that had slipped her mind. "Crudcrudcrudcrud! We gotta get back, NOW!" "What?" Without bothering to explain, Hailey tore off down the path, leaving Aqua standing alone with a bewildered expression on her face. "Humans," she muttered.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"What'd you tell your mom?" Aqua asked as Hailey emerged from the back door. The girl shrugged and dropped into one of the porch seats.

"I just said I lent the binoculars to someone and that they'll give it back. And that you're in town again. Which she already knows, but whatever."

"Out of curiosity, how did you explain my frequent and somewhat random visits?"

"Pre-grad school backpacking around the world."

"Very nice. She bought it, I assume?"

Hailey laughed. "Well, considering that she did it after college, it's not too hard to believe that you're doing it too."

"Really?"

"Yes, really." Aqua slid off the railing she'd been sitting on and straightened the hem of her dress. "Mom was always a little adventurous," Hailey added, almost to herself. "Probably why she got up and jumped over here so quickly." Aqua sat down on the chair next to Hailey's.

"You still haven't forgiven her for picking up and moving without even asking you." It wasn't a question. Hailey sighed and leaned back, which was enough of an answer in its own way. "Anything I can say to help?"

"You could change the topic."

"Fine. Your life. So, am I gonna stay in the guest bedroom or—"

"You know she didn't even ask me when she decided to make the move? I mean, she gave me a few months' warning and all, but it would've been nice to think that I had a say in something like this." The mermaid let out a breath and relaxed her posture. She'd long since learned that ranting humans were best left to say whatever was on their minds, though she couldn't understand why they had to get started in the first place. "It's like I don't even matter compared to her job, you know? She just comes home one day, tells me that we're moving across the planet and does she even care enough to ask what I think? And then she says she can't understand why I was acting the way I was? I…"

Aqua zoned back in when she detected that Hailey had finally run out of steam. She didn't even catch the girl's last words, and frankly, that was just fine with her. She took a deep breath and prepared to deliver one of the many answers to such a rant that she'd prepared on the long trip over. "Hailey, I—"

The back door swung open and Hailey's mother emerged with a tray of buttery-looking biscuits and a pitcher of what looked like orange juice, plus two empty glasses. She wore a black dress and make-up, which struck Aqua as odd, though Hailey didn't seem to notice.

"Hello, Aqua."

"Hi Mrs Rogers." She set the tray down on table in front of Hailey and poured each girl a drink.

"Hailey tells me you're backpacking around the world," Mrs Rogers said as she straightened up.

"Oh yeah. There's just so much to see, and I want to experience a lot more in the world before going for my masters degree."

"Well, that sounds fantastic. I went backpacking myself, but I didn't really go around as much as I planned. Where've you been?"

"Actually, I just got off a very long flight from France. I was exploring Normandy; the coastal cities, that kind of stuff."

Hailey's mom leaned against the faded white wall; she was clearly enjoying the conversation. "Wow. I've never even been to France, though I've always wanted to see Saint-Malo."

"Oh, Saint-Malo is just gorgeous," Aqua answered, ignoring Hailey's partly-disguised look of awe. "It's just so full of things to see. Walking along the walls is really an experience, and then there's the _piscine de Bon-Secour_."

"Oh yes, the swimming pool of the sea. I would love to see that one day."

"You really should."

Mrs Rogers sighed, probably wishing she were still young and free enough to go traveling around the world.

"Anyway, I've fixed up the guest bedroom for you, but you'll have to share it with Claire when she arrives."

"That's alright; I've never enjoyed sleeping alone anyway."

"Okay. Well," Hailey's mother continued, glancing at her watch, "I'll leave you girls to yourselves. I have a dinner to attend, so I won't be home until close to midnight." That explained the dress. "See you later," Mrs Rogers said as she went back into the house.

"Bye mom. Have a good time," Hailey called after her mother. A few minutes later they heard the sound of the car revving and backing out of the drive. Hailey downed the rest of her juice and stood up. "Let's head inside. We have a lot to talk about." She waved Aqua in ahead of her, then paused to grab the tray of refreshments. Hey, a girl had to eat.

They'd headed inside to the kitchen; Aqua sat at the counter sipping orange juice while Hailey stood at the stove, having volunteered to cook them dinner. The smell of frying garlic filled the room and wafted out the windows. Since the other rooms were accessible through doorless arches, the smell probably filled the rest of the house too. It wasn't a particularly large kitchen, but it held about everything one would need in such a place. The large cream-colored refrigerator stood beside the opening to the dining room. Next to it stood a white-tiled counter that ran to the opposite wall, interrupted only by the black cooking range. Glass-windowed cabinets under the counter held the things one would need to have a meal; neatly stacked plates and bowls stood next to drawers of silverware, spices, and condiments. Pots, pans, and the like hung from pegs in the wall, and a small collection of cookbooks sat in the corner. A chopping board lay on the stretch of counter next to the range, and two pork chops were on top of that. Aqua had offered to help prepare the food, but Hailey claimed to know exactly what she was doing. Not that it was very comforting.

"A mermaid, eh?"

"Yep. The whole package, with the fins and the ridiculously long hair and the seashell bra…okay, she didn't have the seashell bra," Hailey amended hastily when Aqua opened her mouth to interrupt. "But yes, a mermaid."

"Now that's very interesting…" Aqua trailed off, thinking hard.

"You know, for such a secretive species, there's an awful lot of you hanging around with humans," Hailey commented, taking a bite out of a cookie.

"And for a species as concerned with their weight as yours, you sure eat an awful lot," came the mermaid's retort.

"Geez, sorry. Talk about sensitive."

"It's called quick wit. You might want to try it out."

"Haha, very funny," Hailey muttered as she rolled her eyes. "Let's get back to the issue at hand."

"Right. Ryan's mermaid. What do you know about her?"

"Aside from what I've already told you? Pretty much nothing. She's as much of a mystery as Ryan."

"Well then, we're gonna have to see if we can find out more, huh?"

"Guess so," Hailey replied, finishing off the cookie and picking up another one. Aqua took a long drink from her glass as Hailey started speaking again.

"Claire's flight probably just left, so she's not arriving for over a day. When she gets here, we'd better have something good to tell her."

"Because…?"

"Because she'll know what to do about it. She always was the smart one."

"I thought you were the smart one."

"No, I'm the gutsy one."

"Does that make you—"

"No, it does not make me stupid."

"Just had to clarify that."

Hailey used the stainless steel spatula to pick up the pork chops and drop them into the frying pan. There was a hiss, and a cloud of steam filled the room. "I don't think it was supposed to do that," Hailey muttered, almost too softly for Aqua to hear.

"You know, Hail, I'm starting to feel not so good about this," Aqua said, a slight quiver in her voice.

"Look, relax, I know what I'm doing," Hailey reassured her.

"Sorry. It's just that dying in a fire seems like a really weird way for a mermaid to go. And I'd feel better if you didn't keep eating while you're doing that," she added, taking the tray of cookies from its position next to the stove. Hailey made a face, but went on with her work, tossing in a dash of pepper. "What're you making, by the way?" Aqua asked.

"Heck if I know, but it'll probably be good," came the not-quite-helpful answer. "Look, forget about the food for a second," Hailey told her.

"Right, forget about my impending death by food poisoning due to the incompetence of one of my best friends."

"Come on. Just trust me."

"Fine."

"Okay, I was thinking that we get up real early and head out to the cove before Ryan gets there."

"What makes you so sure he'll head to the cove?"

"He can't take her to eat on the boardwalk; people would notice."

"No, I mean, why're you so sure the first thing he'll do is head out to meet his secret girlfriend?"

"Because she's his _ultra-hot_ secret girlfriend. Meeting up with ultra-hot secret girlfriends is always first on every teenage guy's to-do list."

"That actually makes sense."

"Of course it does. Hand me a couple of plates, will you?"

After finishing dinner and cleaning up, the two girls had headed out to the beach. Aquamarine would lose her legs at sunset, which made it a bad idea for her to actually spend the night in Hailey's house, unless she slept in the bathtub. "In hindsight, you probably should've told your mom that I'd found a place in town," Aqua said as she lazily drifted in circles not far from the shore. Hailey leaned back and closed her eyes, almost wishing she could fall asleep and spend the night where she lay underneath a rocky outcropping that jutted out over the water. It was a little risky to be relaxing in such an open place a few hundred meters from the boardwalk, but it was their hang-out every time Aqua dropped in. So far, they had yet to be seen by anyone.

"Nah, she wouldn't let you spend half a cent if you could stay with us," Hailey replied sleepily. "'Sides, it's not like she'd find out you weren't there anyway. So long as you get back into the house by breakfast, the charade survives." The sound of the waves softly washing onto the sand was a hypnotic lullaby; she was already fighting to keep her eyes open. "Just lock the door, you climb in through my window come morning, and…"

The next thing she knew, she was wide awake, soaking wet, and her heart rate had jumped to match the speed of a sports car in high gear.

"What did you do?" she demanded, fixing Aquamarine with an angry look.

The mermaid shrugged and said, "You fell asleep."

"So what, you splashed half the ocean on me?" Hailey tugged off her shirt, thankful that she'd worn her bathing suit underneath.

"I just figured that your mom would find it really weird if you were discovered asleep out here," was the sarcastic response.

Hailey wrung her shirt, squeezing as much seawater out as she could. "Thanks for waking me up, then," she grumbled.

"I actually find that kind of weird," Aqua commented, leisurely floating on her back as the waves carried her close to the sand. "Your kind has the weirdest reactions to water. I mean, it wakes you up? I couldn't sleep a wink without it."

"You literally can't sleep without it, Aqua, unless you don't mind having your tail dry up and die. That'd be the mermaid version of drowning, I assume."

"And it's not just the wake-up with a shock thing," Aqua went on as though she hadn't heard Hailey's comeback. "You can't live without it, but you'd die if you were stuck in it too long. If someone had told me that before I'd met you and Claire, I'd call it utter bullshark."

That drew a laugh and a retort from Hailey; "Yes, being one-hundred percent human is on the universe's Top Ten list of weird stuff. It's right above being one-hundred percent fish, as I recall."

"Ah, there's that wit we were talking about earlier. Glad to see you've got it after all."

"Out of curiosity, how'd you get here so fast?" Hailey asked, changing the subject while she continued to twist as much seawater out of her shirt as she could.

"I took a shortcut," Aqua replied.

"A shortcut?"

"Even if I told you, it wouldn't matter much," the mermaid replied before submerging headfirst, her tail making no more than a ripple as it slid beneath the waves.

"Nobody ever tells me anything," Hailey grumbled as she tugged her mostly-dry top back on.

"Read _20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea_," Aqua said as she resurfaced. "It'll give you a fairly good idea as well as a better sense of literary appreciation." Hailey laughed; this from the mermaid who'd learned to interact with boys from tabloids and magazines!

"Well, I'm gonna head back home. Don't forget, you've got to be back by dawn."

"Righty-oh. See you in the morning."

Hailey waved and started towards the houses a kilometer or so away. Behind her, she heard a splash as Aqua dropped underwater. Hailey had grown up loving the water, and she spent a lot of time wondering what it was like to be a mermaid. As she walked back towards home, she thought for the millionth time how amazing it was just to be friends with Aqua. There were so many questions she had that she'd wanted to find the answers to long before that fateful storm a little less than a year ago, when Aquamarine had suddenly dove into their lives. Things like how they slept, what they ate, what they watched on TV; heck, did they even have anything like TV? Meeting Aqua had only added to the pile, and the mermaid answered fewer questions than she created, whether unwittingly or on purpose. Did their special powers vary from merperson to merperson? Did they actually live in undersea kingdoms and go to crustaceans for advice? They did listen to starfish, and that wasn't exactly something one could just take in stride. Hailey reached the back door and unlocked it, her mind switching from the mermaid-related musings to musing once more about Ryan Hardy. Aside from finding the general area in which he lived, Hailey still knew nothing about him. While learning that he was seeing a mermaid answered the question of what he did in his spare time, it sprouted several more.

She made sure to lock the guest bedroom before heading to her own, though she left the window open in case Aqua decided to climb in there instead. Out of curiosity, Hailey had spent a couple of nights in the extra bedroom, but it didn't feel as good as her own. Her bedroom was in the part of the house facing the ocean; she had a fairly good view in the morning. The single bed—which she'd been trying to convince her mom to replace with a queen-sized one, or a bunk—was against one corner. Across it sat her desk on which stood the fishbowl containing her pet fish. A dresser was placed at the foot of her bed, on top of which was the makeup kit she never used. Her small collection of footwear occupied a wooden rack next to her desk.

She actually liked her room here in Australia much more than the one back in Baybridge, though she would never admit that to her mom. The wooden walls were painted a soothing caramel color, with simple yet beautiful carved decorations that added a touch of sophistication. She didn't have a ceiling light; instead, floor lamps stood in the three unoccupied corners of the room, and a fluorescent reading light sat on her desk and the side table next to her bed. A glance at her watch told her that it was still too early to go to bed, so she plonked down at her desk and poked at the fishbowl. Though Martin was a good fish, at least as far as fish went, he just wasn't Roby. That sounded weird even in her head, since fish pretty much just swam around and ate, which didn't leave much to compare. Still, she missed Roby. It seemed Martin wasn't in a sociable mood, judging by his refusal to come out of his coral castle, so Hailey got up and went to change into her bedclothes. Afterwards, she killed the light and flopped down on her bed, though she still wasn't ready to fall asleep. She reached over and turned on the lamp that stood on the bedside table, then picked up a magazine from the many dozens that were under her bed. After ten minutes of flipping through the pages without reading anything, she gave up and tossed it to the floor, then turned the lamp back off. She'd never been able to get to sleep very easily, at least in her own bed, and it had only gotten worse since the intercontinental move. It was too hot, too cold, the mattress was too stiff, the pillow needed fluffing; any of a hundred different things could bother her for hours. With some luck, tonight wouldn't be one of those nights.

_All around her, the city burned in shadow. She was looking for something, but she had no idea what. Or who. There was nobody but her on the streets except for a lone dog that scavenged the open dumpsters. "What are you looking for?" a voice behind her whispered. Hailey whirled around only to find that nobody stood there. "Are you looking for me?" the voice said again, this time from her left. She spun, but again found no one. They started coming in droves; "How about me?" "Do you know what you're looking for?" "Are you lost?" "Did you lose something?" "Where is the cake?" She grew dizzy from spinning around and around, trying to see who was talking to her. Suddenly the voices stopped. All was silent for a few minutes. Hailey held her breath, listening intently for the slightest sound. Even the dog had disappeared into the darkness. Just as she started to finally calm down, someone behind her said, "Maybe it's me." She whirled and found herself face-to-face with a grinning opera mask. "You were expecting someone else?" the voice said from behind the mask and the robes that cloaked the figure. In a flash, she reached up and grabbed the mask, yanking it away to expose the face that wore it. Only there was nothing there; the robes fell to the ground, empty. Hailey stood holding the mask, a look of confusion on her face. The cityscape was absolutely silent. There came a loud noise from behind her, and she spun and threw the mask as hard as she could at_

Aqua, who nimbly dodged the pocket book that Hailey flung at her. The mermaid had one foot in the room, the other still outside the window, which had woken Hailey when Aqua opened it from the outside and made a not-quite-loud but still startling noise. It took Hailey a minute to process what she was seeing, her brain still groggy.

"What time is it?" she mumbled.

"Ten past six," Aqua answered as she completed her entrance and shut the window behind her. "As I recall, your mom gets up around seven, and it takes at least ten minutes to make the guest bed look like someone actually slept in it."

"Right, right," Hailey muttered, trying to shake off her sleepiness as she climbed out of bed. She staggered to the door and opened it, grabbing the key to the guest room from her desk as she did so. Aqua silently followed her into the hall and waited as Hailey unlocked the room opposite hers. She pushed the door open and shuffled into the room, beckoning Aqua inside. The mermaid came in and flopped down on the bed; Hailey's mom had to believe that someone had actually used it.

Hailey shut the door behind her and dropped on the couch that occupied half of one wall. She'd thrown off most of her drowsiness, but she still had to fight to stay awake. "Aqua," she called. "Go back over the plan; I'm starting to fall asleep."

"And discussing your weird strategy to stalk a boy and his mermaid girlfriend is going to keep you awake because…?"

"I need something to focus on until I wake up." Hailey could barely keep her eyes open; she was definitely not a morning person. "Just needs to—" Her last words were cut off by the cold water Aqua doused her with. It was not a welcome surprise.

"What was that for?"

"Again, you humans have really weird reactions to water."

Hailey glowered at her, then stood up. At least she was wide awake now. "You lie down on that bed, I'm gonna go change."

"Sounds like a plan," Aqua replied with a smile as she returned to the bed.

"So I figure Ryan plans to spend the whole day with his girl, hopefully at the cove."

"Yes, you said that already."

"Right." Hailey took a bite out of the apple in her right hand. Her left twirled the telescope, which she'd brought along in case the binoculars were either gone from the cliff or damaged beyond use from their night there. "Anyways, our first stop is the boathouse where he keeps his jet ski. If it's there, we'll know that he either hasn't left to meet her yet or they're meeting up somewhere else."

"How do we know which one to go with?"

Hailey shrugged. "Best bet is to wait and see whether he shows up. If he's not there by eight, we'll know that they're meeting somewhere else."

"And then what do we do?"

Hailey stopped and faced her. "Look, I'm making this up as I go. I don't do specific plans. I get an idea, I roll with it."

"That would actually explain a lot."

Hailey sighed and said, "There's a reason I needed Claire around."

"As I recall, you're the one who usually comes up with the plans. You were certainly the reason the two of you met me."

Hailey laughed. "I'm guessing Claire told you who pushed her into going back to the pool that night." She was referring to the girls' first encounter back in Baybridge. Hailey and Claire had been standing in the pool area of the local beach club one morning after a terrible storm that had deposited what seemed like the contents of the entire ocean on the shore. Claire had stood too close to the pool, and a section of the wall – presumably weakened by the torrents of water that had spent most of the previous night trying to smash the club into nonexistence – gave way and dropped her into the murky water. After Raymond, then merely an impossibly handsome lifeguard, had pulled her out, Claire had confessed to Hailey that she'd seen something unnatural in the water. It'd been Hailey's idea to go back later that night. The result was that they'd met their very first mermaid, and Aquamarine had in turn seen humans up close for the first time.

"It was Claire's idea," Hailey told Aqua. "She just didn't want to say it." It was true; Claire's natural curiosity had been obvious, but the fear of water she'd developed after her parents drowned had overridden it. She'd needed a little push, and Hailey had been there to give it. That's my side of the friendship," Hailey explained as the two continued down the beach. "Claire's the brain, I'm the brawn. Such as it is."

Aqua laughed her bubbly laugh and said, "Well then, brawn, don't get us killed with your brainlessness."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"This is a lot less exciting than those movies you and Claire show me make it out to be," Aqua commented from where she sat against a tree stump. Hailey ignored her and zoomed in on Ryan. She'd been right; he and Jade once more occupied the rocky islet in the middle of the cove. To be perfectly honest, she really didn't know what to do next, and the mermaid's complaining wasn't helping. She held her tongue through three or four more sentences, then dropped the binoculars and turned around.

"Look, I already told you, I'm not the one who makes up plans," she hissed at Aqua. "Claire is, but Claire's not here. I don't know what to do other than sit here and try to learn something new, so unless you have a better idea, just shut it." She expected some sort of angry reply, but to her surprise the mermaid smiled, stood, and strode to the edge of the cliff on the side not facing the cove. Hailey was about to ask what Aqua planned, but then the mermaid stepped forward and leaped into thin air – which Hailey certainly did not count as a better idea. Hailey gasped and ran to the ledge just in time to watch Aqua splash into the turquoise water. The mermaid's immediately-restored tail surfaced once, then Hailey lost sight of her.

"Little warning would've been nice," she muttered, then headed back to her position to wait for something to happen.

It didn't take long for Aquamarine to find the entrance to the cove. It really was a pretty inaccessible place, at least by sea. By land it was fairly easy to get a view, but the hike up the steep incline probably put most people off. Unless you were ready and properly trained to make a hundred-foot dive off a cliff – doing it improperly was probably the last thing you'd do – the place probably wasn't accessible by the rock wall either. _Mind on the job,_ she mentally reminded herself as she swam through the surprisingly narrow passage. Within seconds the passage opened up into the secluded inlet. She knew that she had to be very careful to avoid being seen by either Ryan or his merfriend.

Thankfully the water was quite deep, maybe seven fathoms, or forty-two feet if you didn't know what a fathom was. The rock formation on which Ryan and Jade – Hailey had at least mentioned her name – rested was an unusual pillar that Aqua was fairly certain could not be a natural creation. She thought she could see carvings near the base of the pillar and considered going down to investigate; underwater, merfolk could create their own golden light. It seemed sort of like the hokey fairy tales she'd found in Claire's bedroom, but then again, mermaids didn't need the glow to seem like something out of a kid's book. She was pretty sure that the light would attract the attention of either Ryan or Jade, though, so she decided not to investigate. With all the care she could muster,

Her plan suddenly hit a snag – albeit one she probably should've expected – when she realized that getting close enough to hear anything the odd couple were saying without making some sort of noise to alert them would be extremely difficult. She moved slowly towards the surface and and concentrated, but whatever gift of nature allowed mermaids to hear perfectly well under and out of the water didn't help cross the barrier enough for her to clearly understand the conversation taking place a mere meter or so away. It was a simple choice; give up and head back to the open water and eventually meet up with Hailey, or suck it up and risk detection by sticking enough of her head out of the water to hear what the two were saying. After a moment's reflection, she carefully broke the surface, just enough that her ears were above water level. Ryan's back was to her, but he wouldn't see her unless he turned around _and _looked down at the right angle. It would take some bad luck for that to happen, and thus far in her life Aqua had been fairly lucky.

She didn't expect to hear anything world-shattering; while that would definitely be interesting, it was equally unlikely. Until recently, Aqua had been the only member of the merfolk she knew of to interact directly with humans. The two species weren't exactly encouraged to mingle, which is why merfolk were usually nothing but myths and fantasy movie characters to humans. Amusingly, it was also occasionally true vice versa. Eavesdropping on Ryan and Jade might unearth how they met, which would certainly be an interesting story. That they were apparently a couple made it all the more fascinating.

"There's still something about that Hailey," Jade was saying.

"Don't worry about her," Ryan replied, leaning back. "She can be curious, but I don't think she's particularly bright."

Ouch. Not that Hailey could have heard it. Jade laughed the bubbly laugh that most mermaids possessed, though Aqua admitted to herself that few could make it sound as beautiful.

"You don't pull your punches, do you?"

"I'm not insulting her or anything. I just know she's no CIA field agent," Ryan corrected her.

"Curiosity is still a dangerous trait."

"I can deal with her," Ryan said reassuringly.

"But if—"

"Even if she does find out," he interrupted, "I doubt she'd stand on a mountain with a bullhorn and proclaim it to the world. While I'd rather not have to stoop to blackmail, that's a card I can play if I need to. I know she has a little secret of her own, too."

_That _got Aquamarine's attention. She took the risk of pulling herself almost half out of the water in an attempt to better hear what Jade and Ryan were discussing; now _this _was interesting – and more than a bit worrying.

"A secret of her own?" Judging by Jade's tone, she was completely unaware of whatever Ryan was talking about.

"Put it this way," Ryan said with a trace of smugness in his voice. "I'm not the only one in Australia with a friend with fins." Uh oh. Aqua quickly submerged and made for the exit of the cove, not realizing how much noise she made while doing so.

Thanks to her elevated position and the binoculars, Hailey was at least able to see the disturbance in the water that indicated where Aqua was eavesdropping from. _Must be nice to have fins_, Hailey silently mused. She'd been in love with water all her life, and in a twist less literature-savvy people might call ironic – it wasn't, not by the dictionary definition of the word – stumbling upon Aquamarine in a storm-thrashed beach club had made her wish she could trade her legs in for a tail. Her fascination went beyond the idea of being able to breathe underwater and being part fish; more so now than ever before, she knew there was a whole new world underneath the waves that she knew next to nothing about. She felt like the opposite of Disney's Ariel; there was almost nothing she wouldn't give to be a mer –

"Hailey!" The surprise made Hailey jump so far she almost fell off the cliff. Fortunately, she didn't let go of the binoculars. Even more fortunately, she didn't scream, which would've alerted the two lovebirds down below.

"Geez, Aqua, you scared the cheesecake out of me," Hailey gasped as she turned to face her amazingly dry friend. The mermaid's face wore a look of confusion, probably due to Hailey's odd expression of surprise, but she shook it off and grabbed the girl by the shoulder.

"There's something extremely important you have to know."

"How did you dry off so fast?"

"That is not extremely important," Aqua replied as she grabbed Hailey's hand and began dragging her away from the ledge.

"Where're we going?"

"Again, that is not extremely important."

"It is if you don't want to have to drag me along on my butt."

"You could stand to knock some mass from it."

"Okay, now I really am going to make you drag me along on my butt." As if to follow through on her threat – knowing Hailey as Aqua did, it was very likely – Hailey sat down in the dirt and crossed her arms, pouting. Aqua rolled her eyes and dropped to her knees so she was face-to-face with her obstinate friend.

"Ryan knows about me." Hailey's eyes snapped wider than Aqua had ever seen them – though she didn't make any move to get up.

"How is that even possible?" she demanded. Interestingly, she skipped the expected "Are you sure?" query. Doubt, it seemed, was no longer a part of Hailey Rogers' life.

"I don't know," Aqua answered, mentally running through the last few days. "I haven't even been in the country for twenty-four hours."

"Could he have seen you some time last night?" Hailey was obviously racking her brain as well.

Aqua shook her head as she said, "Not unless he can hold his breath indefinitely and has really really good underwater night vision." A thought suddenly struck her. "What if he's a merman?"

"I don't think so," Hailey replied after some uncharacteristically brief consideration. "I was on that jet ski with him yesterday, and he definitely got his legs wet. They should've turned into a tail right then and there. Besides," she added, "he wouldn't have needed to take the hard way into the cove." It hadn't been a very good theory from the start, but it was better than the nothing they had wound up with.

"Let's head back to the house," Hailey suggested, gathering up her stuff. "We've got some thinking to do."


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE**

"What we need is a list," Hailey said as she struggled to uncap a particularly uncooperative whiteboard marker. The marker, and the board on which Hailey intended to write with it, belonged to her mother. They seemed like anachronisms in an age where pretty much everyone owned a laptop and every office a projector, but Mrs Rodgers occasionally preferred a more traditional approach. Besides, it was easier to wipe a whiteboard clean than to repeatedly press backspace on a keyboard.

Hailey finally got the cover off and wrote, "WHAT WE KNOW" near the top of the board, then dotted a single bullet point underneath it.

"That is not going to be a long list," Aqua commented from where she lay on Hailey's bed, munching cookies from a jar. Although she was always poking fun at Hailey's habit of overeating, Aqua spent a lot of time snacking on whatever was close at hand. Chocolate chip cookies, potato chips, and gummy worms probably weren't very common fare underwater, so it was somewhat understandable that the mermaid enjoyed them so much. Judging by the pleasure with which Jade had attacked her sandwich a day or two earlier, it could be a common thing among the merfolk – or Jade just had some weird thing against meat. What was infuriating was that Aqua remained quite slender even after all the junk food she ate, and Jade was by no reasonable standards unsightly. It was probably all the swimming that did it.

"A list of things we _don't _know might be longer," Hailey countered, "were it not oxymoronic and kind of impossible to compile such a list."

Aqua laughed off the sarcasm and told her friend, "Then we start with the questions." Hailey opened her mouth for another retort, but nothing came out as the merit of the suggestion hit her. She worked her jaw around for a few seconds before shutting her trap and turning back to the whiteboard, which she wiped clean with one hand. "Okay then," she muttered, scribbling, "THINGS WE NEED TO FIND OUT". Under it, she wrote, "1. WHY" before capping the marker.

"Specifically," she said as she turned back to face Aqua, who was finishing the last of the cookies, "why is he hiding his fishy femme from us?"

"Excellent question," Aqua commented. She set down the glass jar with a forlorn look on her face. "D'you have any gummy worms up here?" she asked. Hailey sighed exasperatedly and said,

"Cripes, do you ever stop eating?"

"Not when the food's this good. As you can imagine, underwater cuisine tends to be very soggy."

"Right. No, I don't have gummy worms up here."

"I very much doubt that, seeing as how you spend half your time – "

"Can we get back to the matter at hand now?"

"Okay, sure. Ryan's secrecy."

Hailey dropped onto her chair, thoughftully twirling one of her brown locks. "Is there some kind of rule about all this? Something about human-mermaid relationships staying secret even to others?" she wondered aloud.

Aqua shook her head as she told Hailey, "If there is, I haven't heard of it. And I'm pretty sure it wouldn't prevent fellow merfolk-friendly humans from speaking to each other, considering there isn't a law against mermaids interacting with humans in the first place."

"As far as you know."

"I'm assuming a merpeople death squad would've come after me by now if I was wrong." Hailey gave an okay-if-you-say-so shrug and got up to walk back to the board.

"So there's no rule against it," she muttered, tapping the marker against the whiteboard's wooden rim.

"He certainly doesn't seem like thej ealous secret-keeping type," Aqua contributed from where she still lay on the bed, bright blue eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"No, he isn't," Hailey confirmed, staring intently at the board as though an answer would magically appear on its surface. No dice; they'd have to do some detective work of their own.

Hailey decided to move on with the list of questions and wrote, "2. HOW" under "WHY".

"I'm guessing you mean how he found out about me," Aqua spoke up, "because trying to figure out how to find out the why would lead to a serious headache."

"Of course I mean how he found out about you," Hailey responded, still staring at the board. "And I think the question of 'when' should be included there," she added, writing, "WHEN" next to the "HOW", separating the two with a dash. "We've got two possibilities here," Hailey said, counting on her fingers.

"And what would those be?" Aqua asked.

"One would be that he saw you alone somewhere, then saw you and I together."

"I don't know when he might have seen me alone," Aqua stated, "but I'm fairly certain that yesterday was the first time he ever saw you and I together."

"What makes you say that?"

"The way he asked about my being here in Australia. Something told me he was trying to make some kind of connection." Hailey nodded in agreement; she'd picked up on Ryan's investigative tone too, though at the time she hadn't been nearly suspicious enough to realize that something was up. "For that matter," Aqua continued, steepling her fingers, "I'm pretty sure that wasn't the first time he'd seen me."

"I'd ask why you think that, but you have an irritating habit of being right, so we'll just go with it. When do you think he first saw you?"

After a moment's reflection, Aqua shook herh ead. "I don't know, but something tells me getting to the bottom of this is going to have to be our number one priority."

"Yeah, well, without Claire we're one detective short of – well, of a decent invesigation party," Hailey said with a shrug.

"We'll just have to make do, then, won't we?" Aqua declared, swinging herself up off Hailey's bed and taking over the whiteboard and marker. "Let's review the facts as we know them."

"I think I was already trying to do that."

"Number one," Aqua continued, ignoring Hailey's irritated protest, "Ryan knows who – and more importantly _what _– I really am."

"I'm going to keep talking nonsense just to see if you're even still acknowledging my existence," Hailey stated, then immediately began doing so. Of course, her friend ignored her.

"Number two, Ryan's hiding something, something he's willing to use blackmail to protect."

"Did you know that in his earliest incarnations, Batman used guns and actually killed people?"

"Number three, we don't know how or why he knows number one."

"Then again, you don't know who Batman is, so that doesn't matter to you."

"Number four, and this is a pretty safe assumption, whatever Ryan's hiding is somehow related to Jade and I. And I do know who Batman is," Aqua added as she finished writing on the board.

"In the original version of _Char_ – wait, you're not supposed to acknowledge me. And since when do you know who Batman…" Hailey's voice trailed off as Aqua stared at her pointedly. "Okay, okay already. I'll get serious."

"Good."

"So. We have the facts as we know them, plus one likely –"

"More than likely."

"— more than likely assumption. Normal espionage procedure at this point would be to begin more aggressive intelligence-gathering, but neither of us is a trained spy, and – "

"And neither of us is Claire, who'd probably be able to think of something we could do that would actually produce results," Aqua finished.

Right then, Hailey missed Claire more than she ever had in the last year. Claire wouldn't have had such a hard time thinking things through – which sounded pretty insulting to Hailey and Aqua, but the truth was rarely easy to swallow and completely unoffensive. Friendship didn't have to be built around mysteries like this, but it was good when they came around. Hailey imagined it was similar to the bond soldiers formed in war – with less horrific violence, though. The fact was that though Claire was less than twenty-four hours away – point-of-fact, total flight time was a little less than eighteen hours – it still felt like summer had just ended and Claire had just left. She missed her best friend. There wasn't much else to say. Aqua didn't say anything to break Hailey's pensive mood, either because she was sensitive enough to detect moments of reflection or because she'd found Hailey's stash of M&M's.

"Tell you what," Hailey finally said with a sigh, "let's drop all the sleuthing for now and wait until Claire gets here."

"Sounds good to me," Aqua replied with a shrug, her voice startlingly clear considering the amount of candy-coated chocolate she had in her mouth.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX**

"In hindsight, Reverse Strip Battleship was probably not the best idea," Hailey admittedly thickly through the two scarves wrapped around her head. The pair sat in the middle of Hailey's bedroom, an unusually large Battleship board open between them. Aqua leaned back on her arms and cocked an eyebrow, and Hailey could almost hear her thinking, _In hindsight?_

Instead, the mermaid contented herself with a particularly sassy, "It's better than the original concept, and safer than the exploding variation."

"You always say exploding things are too dangerous to play. Exploding makes things exciting. Don't you like explosions?"

"Not in real life, at least nowhere near as much as that guy on TV with a walrus mustache. C7."

"Aaaand there goes my submarine," Hailey sighed as she reached for a sweater to pull over the five layers of clothing she already had on.

"You'd be doing better if you didn't keep putting it in the same place every game," Aqua muttered; winning was fun, but what she was doing was Sylvester Stallone competing in the Special Olympics. "It's like you're not even trying to win, Hail-fail."

"Dr Seuss could probably write a new book around my name, if not for the whole being dead thing," Hailey chuckled or tried to through the wool around her head. "I could go work for the post office and be Hail Mail."

Aqua laughed and joined in, the Battleship board forgotten. "If you were bread, you'd become Hail-Stale."

"Hit me with a hammer, 'cause I'm Hail-Nail."

"If you married the star of _American Psycho_, you'd be Hail Bale."

"I don't know when or why you watched that, but if I panicked, I'd Hail-Flail."

"Claire said it was a good movie, and you take forever getting out of bed because you're the Hail Snail."

"If I were a sheriff, I'd send people to the Hail-Jail."

"If someone shot you, you'd be dead."

Silence, then, "You just couldn't think of any more words that rhyme with Hail, could you? You can be such a curmudgeon sometimes. I don't know why you have – "

_Beep beep._

Aqua and Hailey looked up as the car horn sounded again. Their enthusiastic rhyme-off had apparently masked the noise of the vehicle pulling into the driveway, helped slightly by the music eminating from Hailey's iPod dock. Aqua stood up and went to check the window while Hailey started pulling the excess garments off her body. "I thought your mom was supposed to be out until five," Aqua commented, glancing at the (funnily enough) mermaid-themed wall clock, which read a quarter to twelve noon.

"Ah, she probably forgot her slouch hat or something," Hailey replied as she struggled to get a too-tight cardigan off her. "I can't believe how fat I've gotten. Help me out of this, will you?"

Aquamarine sighed as she vacated the window and went to kneel next to Hailey. "You really need to ease off the Vegemite and meat pies," she playfully scolded as she tugged at the cardigan. "It's doing terrible things to your figure, and you weren't exactly svelte to begin with."

"First, Vegemite is gross. Second, I'll thank you to stop making comments on my physical fitness level. Third, shut up, I'm not fat."

"Don't worry, Claire and I accept you in spite of," Aqua waved vaguely at Hailey's body, "all this."

"I. Am. Not. Fat."

"That's the spirit."

They went on bickering loudly enough that neither of them heard the door open.

* * *

Some things never changed. Places and times did, but people…people usually stayed the same. Though they were great friends, Hailey and Aquamarine tended to have very noisy squabbles that they apparently found so engrossing, they'd even fail to notice the entrance of their little band's third – and arguably smartest – member.

Claire carefully lowered her backpack to the floor and leaned against the doorframe, a big smile on her face. The scene was something she actually missed – not because she didn't have new friends who bickered, but because those people were just fillers for the pair that sat not ten feet from her. Though she was loathe to kill the fun, there were other things to get to. Claire raised one hand to her mouth and coughed loudly.

The pair turned and stood immediately, though their reactions were very different; Aqua simply smiled, but Hailey cleared the distance between her and Claire in a heartbeat.

Claire tried to say hi, but suddenly Hailey's arms were so tightly wrapped around her that she could barely breathe. She could see Aqua grinning like mad over Hailey's shoulder, but to her annoyance the mermaid did nothing to release her from Hailey's bear grip.

"You're early!" Hailey screamed as she finally let Claire go. "Why didn't call ahead?"

"I wanted it to be a surprise," Claire panted as she took in deep breaths.

"I'll go help your mom with the bags," Aqua told Hailey as she walked out the door, leaving the two best friends to catch up.

"How was your flight? Did you get a window seat? Were there any cute guys? Did you bring me chocolate?"

Though it cost her precious oxygen that she had yet to fully enjoy, Claire was forced to laugh at Hailey's stream of interrogation, particularly the last part. "The last thing you need is more chocolate," she told her friend. It was only partially true; thought Hailey wasn't as slim as Claire or Aqua, her fuller figure looked quite good on her. It may have been simple teenage insecurity, but Claire often felt like the odd one out in the group next to Aqua's model good looks and Hailey's…well, curvaceousness. It didn't help that they were both taller than her, too.

As it happened, though, she _had _bought an extra-large bar of chocolate when she landed at Sydney. This she produced from a side pocket of her cargo pants, much to Hailey's delight. "I knew you didn't think I was fat," Hailey said as she excitedly tore the wrapping.

"Actually, I just figured that if you're going to die of stupidity and/or obesity, you may as well die happy," Claire laughed. Hailey stuck out a chocolate-coated tongue and went back to her candy bar without comment.

"So you're not going to take the extra layers off, then?" Aqua asked Hailey as she re-entered the room, having left Claire's luggage in the guest bedroom.

"Oh, right," Hailey mumbled through a mouth full of chocolate. Keeping the near-footlong candy bar clenched between her teeth, shebegan trying to pull off the two cardigans, three pullovers, and lone jacket she'd had to done by losing her ships.

"Actually, I meant the chubby-chubchub," Aqua said as she gave Claire a welcoming embrace. The two almost fell to the floor when Hailey whacked the mermaid hard on the back of the head.

"Well, now that we've got the mandatory mushy greetings out of the way," Claire said once she and Aqua had stopped laughing, "I think we have some serious business to get down to."

"So mermaids make boys serious business?" Aqua asked, cocking an eybrow.

"Aqua," Hailey responded in her most serious voice, "boys are _always _serious business."

* * *

"So this mysterious boy suddenly has a mysterious girlfriend. Somehow the boy has found out about _our _mysterious friend, and he's ready to use this secret to keep us from either finding something out or telling people about something he thinks we know. For some reason, he didn't tell his mer-girl about it at first, but now she knows and she's in on it too because she also knows what he either thinks we know or knows we don't know but doesn't want us to know. Anything to add?"

Hailey and Aqua simply stared blankly at Claire, whose accurate yet confusing summary had left them fairly speechless. She let the silence stand for a few minutes before turning to Hailey's whiteboard. She'd changed from her traveling clothes to a more casual – and comfortable –summer dress in shades of yellow, but the look on her face was completely serious. It hadn't taken much for her to automatically switch back into her role as the _de facto_ brains of the operation. Not that Aqua and Hailey were stupid, but the latter tended to let her excitement defeat logic, and the former had a very strong impulsive streak that she rarely bothered to control.

"I think we should start with what we know – " Claire began, but Hailey cut her off.

"We already did that. It's not a lot."

"Yes, you told me," Claire replied, "but I didn't mean what we know about the situation itself. I was thinking more along the lines of biology and socio-cultural information." Hailey groaned, which elicited a laugh from the other two girls.

"You mean mermaids," Aqua stated. It wasn't a guess.

Claire nodded and uncapped the marker. "I mean mermaids," she said as she wrote 'MERFOLK' on the top of the board. "I think whatever Ryan's guarding has something to do with our mutual quirk of – "

"Unusually high sex appeal," Hailey finished without missing a beat, drawing more laughter from Aqua and Claire.

"That probably isn't what Ryan's worried about," Claire told Hailey. "I meant our acquaintance with fictional –" Aqua cleared her throat, "_seemingly_ fictional but actually very discreet sea creatures. Hailey, let's start with a rundown of what you and I know without having to ask Aqua."

"Why?"

"Because chances are, every item on that list will be too ordinary to be worth hiding, which means we can eliminate them from the bigger list of possible reasons. There might also be something in there that'll give us a clue about how he found out about Aqua withouthis girlfriend's help."

"Okay. That makes sense."

"You start."

"There's the tail."

"Fingernails change color."

"Toenails do too."

"They can have legs on land from sunrise to sunset, but they can't get them wet."

"Actually, they can, but it's a bad idea if you're in public."

"They have power over water."

"They can talk to fish."

"Hair length changes when they transform."

"They have nice abs."

"That's not mer-specific."

"Sorry. They, um, have highlights in their hair?"

"Okay, yes they do."

"You're forgetting one very important thing."

Claire and Hailey turned to Aqua, who had gotten up and walked over to Hailey's desk. She had been doing something to a folded sheet of paper with a pair of scissors, and now she put the scissors down. "Mermaids," she continued, "don't do love." She pulled on the edges of the paper to reveal multiple heart shapes cut into it.

The other two were silent for a minute.

"Somehow, I don't think _that's _too ordinary to bother hiding," Hailey commented.

"Could that have something to do with what Ryan's so worried about?" Claire mused.

Of course Aqua had been the one to remember that bit of information. Her first adventure with the girls had been trying to win a bet with her father about the existence of love, after all. Merfolk culture apparently didn't believe in love, dismissing it as an insipid fantasy. Aqua had only come to consider the possibility of falling in love when she saw two humans on a boat who clearly exhibited every sign of the supposedly non-existent emotion. Perhaps it was fate that Claire and Hailey were the ones who helped Aqua definitively prove to herself and her father the truth and power of love – Claire's parents were the humans who'd unknowingly started the mermaid down that path in the first place.

Claire wrote the word 'LOVE' on the whiteboard, right under 'MERMAID'.

"I think we have a clue."


	7. Chapter 7

In the long history of espionage and through thousands of years of technological advancement, human intelligence – the gathering of information through traditional manpower – remained the most reliable method if one wished to find something out. HUMINT remained the number one weapon of intelligence agencies all over the world, from the American CIA to the British SIS. It was hardly a secret that every government maintained a large force of agents across the globe for those times when nothing could beat a thinking human being with good old-fashioned eyes and ears. HUMINT could win wars almost as surely as guns and tanks, and it certainly was better at preventing them. Whatever one might say about it, its success rate could hardly be denied.

Or at least that's what Claire had said. Whether or not it was all true, it was why the three girls were braving the early afternoon sun among the stalls on the boardwalk near Hailey's house. Each of the trio had a large beverage cup in hand and a wide-brimmed hat on her head, all the better to try to stay relatively cool.

"I know you're the _de__facto_brains of the operation," Hailey told Claire, "but I'm gonna need you to remind me why you think Ryan will be walking around here, let alone with Jade."

"I'm pretty sure sitting on a rock all day is not the most romantic date," was Claire's vague reply.

"Maybe, but if they're trying to keep their relationship on the down low, they are _not_going to be walking around a crowded area. Come on, I must have seen three people from school here already."

"Crowds are a great place to hide," Claire explained as she stopped at a stall to purchase a sausage sizzle. She blew on the sandwich to cool it down, then continued, "You'd be amazed at how hard it is to spot someone unless you're really on the lookout for them. It's how loads of criminals get around in broad daylight; unless they do something really stupid to draw attention, they're pretty much invisible."

"When did you become Miss CIA?" Hailey asked with a laugh as she too bought a sandwich.

"Long flights and nine dollar Tom Clancy paperbacks," Claire replied before taking a bite out of her food. "Pretty good combination, actually."

"And why would he rather be here than at home?"

It was Aqua who answered this time: "Not he. _She_."

Hailey immediately caught on; "I guess staying at home watching soap opera reruns isn't everyone's idea of an ideal date."

"Exactly."

The conversation turned to more mundane topics as the trio continued to explore the boardwalk. Other things began to occupy their attention; Hailey got her hands on a cup of shrimp cocktail, for which she was again called fat by Aqua. Hailey retaliated by calling the mermaid "fish-breath", which Aqua said wasn't true and wouldn't even be an insult in mer-society. This somehow eventually led to Hailey apologizing to Claire for eating the giant Toblerone bar in her luggage, which confused Claire since none of the three hadn't been out of each other's sight for more than a couple of minutes since she'd arrived.

It wasn't the most effective way to search for a face in the crowd, but it hardly mattered after a while; fifteen minutes after they arrived on-scene, they'd already forgotten why they were there. Friends – close friends – could have that effect on you; one minute you're just there to buy a Coke and the next thing you know, it's seven the next morning and you're finishing the last slice from the sixth box of pizza while someone puts on another horror flick.

It was this effect that found the three sitting outside a café not far from the boardwalk a couple of hours later, the search for Ryan abandoned.

"And I know starfish do _not_shut up with the compliments, but these guys were seriously going over the top," Aqua was saying. "I mean, seriously, who says nice things about the roots of your hair?"

"Starfish, apparently," Claire replied as she took a sip of juice.

"Y'know," Hailey chimed in, "the thing about them is, they do _not_stop talking! I wore a pair of them to school once, and I was getting stuff from my locker when this guy came up to me. The thing is, the starfish – "

"Waitwaitwait," Claire interrupted. "A guy? As in, not someone whose name you knew?"

"Well," Hailey said, "he was in one of my classes, so I sort of knew him."

"But you didn't know his name."

"Um...no?"

"So some guy came up to you in the hall, started to ask you out, and _you__never__told__me_?"

"I didn't know he was going to ask me out!" Hailey sputtered, surprised at Claire's tone.

"But why didn't you _tell__me_?"

"Do I have to tell you _everything_ that goes on in my life?"

"Everything _important_," Claire huffed, crossing her arms.

"Come on, Claire, I didn't know it was important," Hailey said apologetically.

"You could have _mentioned_it," Claire grumbled. "I mean, I thought we were best frie–"

"Hold that thought," Hailey interrupted, suddenly focused on a spot behind Claire. "Mermaid at my eleven o'clock."

Aqua immediately began to turn her head, but Claire's hand shot out and grabbed the mermaid's hair, holding her in place. "Is she looking at us?" Claire asked Hailey, now all cold business. Aqua wisely refrained from trying to shake Claire off, instead focusing her attention on Hailey.

"No. She just came out of a shop. Hasn't looked this way yet."

Claire released her handful of blonde hair, allowing Aqua to turn. Claire took a deep breath before twisting in her seat to get her first glance of the famous – or infamous – Jade.

Though Claire had never seen her before, she did have Hailey's description to go by – and there was only one person on that side of the street anyway. The girl wore a sleeveless mint green dress that fell to her knees, displaying toned arms and legs. Her lush black hair was in a ponytail that was slung over one shoulder. This same shoulder also carried the weight of a messenger bag slung diagonally across the girl's body.

Curiously, she seemed to be alone.

"Where's Ryan?" Aqua whispered. Claire just shook her head, and the three continued to watch as Jade mounted a bicycle that had been leaning against the brick wall of the building she'd just come out of. She pedaled off at an easy pace, giving no indication that she'd noticed her observers.

"Shouldn't we follow her or something?" Hailey murmured.

"Not while she's on that bike. We'd be too obvious," Claire vetoed. "Unless you've become a parkour expert all of a sudden."

"Well, I _have_been playing a lot of _Assassin__'__s__Creed_ in the last year…"

The trio could only watch until Jade rounded a corner and was lost from sight.

As Claire let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, Hailey mused, "Somehow, I don't think she's on her way to Ryan's place."

The three finished their drinks and got up to begin the trip back to Hailey's house. They walked in silence until Hailey finally said, "Claire, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about James, but I really didn't – "

"I thought you didn't know his name," Claire cut her off. Aqua quietly fell behind the two, taking a sudden interest in the clouds.

"I didn't, until he told me it was James Donnelly. But that aside, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. It's just, I didn't know you'd react like this."

For a moment it looked as though Claire was about to snap back, but then she took a deep breath and shook her head. "No, Hailey, I'm the one who should be sorry. I have no right to make you tell me everything."

Hailey threw an arm around Claire's waist and pulled her close. "Sure you do. We're BFF's."

Claire smiled and returned the hug. "Sorry. I guess I'm just a bit…I dunno, lonely."

"Haven't you made any new friends since I left?"

"A few, but…you know. Not really – "

"Not really best buds for life," Hailey finished. "I know what you mean."

After a minute or so, Aqua finally joined in, changing the topic with, "So this James. Was he cute, or a shrimp type?"

"Shrimp type?"

"You only want him for his body."

Claire and Hailey roared with laughter as they neared the house.

* * *

"Mer-tradition dictates that children marry whoever their parents choose, correct?"

Aqua waited for Claire to finish dealing the cards before answering her with a, "Correct." Part of what Hailey called Aqua's 'Continued Human Education' was learning how to play card games; right now, it was Texas Hold 'Em Poker. The pot – three red poker chips – already sat in the middle of the table, and each player now had her two hole cards.

"I'm no expert on mermaid psychology," Claire said as she took a peek at her cards, "but I'm guessing the rationale behind that is that parents supposedly know so much more than their offspring that their decisions are considered unquestionable. Hailey, betting starts with you."

"Yeah yeah, I know how to play," Hailey muttered as she too glanced at her hand. She tossed a single red chip into the pot before saying, "This might just be a wacky guess, but I think you think Ryan thinks what he's doing – whatever it is – is the smart thing."

Aqua and Claire both matched Hailey's bet before Claire responded, "Not quite. I'm guessing it's more of a 'stupid but right thing' situation." She finally dealt the flop – the first three community cards of the game – and there was another lull in the conversation as the three girls checked their hole cards again. "I haven't actually met him, but I have a feeling that he's more likely to defend something 'right' instead of something 'smart'. Namely, it's the right thing to defend what his girlfriend thinks is smart."

"Then why's he playing it so close to his chest? Jade didn't even know about us and Aqua until he told her." Hailey increased the pot by two red chips, then continued, "D'you think it's some kind of self-appointed hero deal?"

Aqua called her bet, then mused, "It might explain why she felt the need to go off on her own. Besides, what exactly about Jade is he trying to protect? I know mermaids, and there's nothing about us that needs to be kept a secret like this."

"I'm not so sure," Claire replied as she too called the bet. "If that's true, why do you guys feel the need to be so, ahem, discreet?" She flipped out another card, making it four community cards on the table.

"As a people? Dunno. Personally, I'm actually about as good at it as shark trying to backflip," Aqua laughed as Hailey nibbled her lower lip, clearly wondering whether to fold or keep going. The cards on the table were hardly promising; it was difficult to make a winning hand out of a jack, an ace, a two, and a five, all of different suits. A single pair – two at the most – was the most likely hand that could be formed, but that was fairly easy to trump with a little luck.

Hailey finally exhaled and upped the ante even more, throwing in a white chip – five points. They weren't playing for actual money; the amount won was how many slaps to the face the winner could give either or both of the losers in total. It was kind of a stupid bet, but still preferable to losing real cash. "I sometimes wonder about that, actually," she commented. "You guys live way out to sea, right? What were you doing so close to the beach that a wave knocked you into the Capri's pool?"

Aqua shrugged as she casually matched the bet. "I've always been pretty curious about humans."

"And there's nothing wrong with that? As far as merpeople culture is concerned, I mean." Claire looked at her cards again before sighing and placing them face down on the table, signifying her withdrawal from the game. "Fold."

"It's not exactly something they encourage, but it isn't _illegal_," Aqua answered. Despite backing out, Claire was still performing the role of the dealer, and so she dealt the final card, which turned out to be another two. "My dad only got cheesed off when I started going against the whole 'love doesn't exist' thing; he was okay with my, shall we say, expeditions into human territory. By the way, why is the phrase 'cheesed off' anyway? What does cheese have to do with being annoyed?"

Both Claire and Hailey snickered before Claire answered, "It's just a weird piece of slang. It happens." There was a brief pause before Claire added, "I think Ryan's afraid of something."

"What makes you say that?" Hailey asked as she tossed another white chip into the pot. Aqua matched the bet with surprising speed.

"Mostly just a hunch. But normal people don't keep blackmail up their sleeves just for fun."

"I think it's important to note that he hasn't actually threatened us with anything," Aqua said. "He told Jade he can and will use it if necessary, but he hasn't told _us_. I'm no expert at this, but I think you have to at least let people _think_you have a trump card."

"One trump card doesn't make a winning hand," Claire reminded her. "Maybe he thinks we know something we actually don't."

"Or maybe he realizes that somehow, we do, in fact, hold all the cards," Hailey said before triumphantly laying down her hand face-up. A two and a five, which made three of the former and two of the latter – a full house, which was one of the highest hands in poker. She reached out to take the pot when, much to the surprise of both Hailey and Claire, Aquamarine grabbed her hand.

"Or," the mermaid said, "he's waiting for us to make our move before _he_makes _his_." Her other hand was also outstretched to display the cards in her possession: a pair of twos. That made four of a kind – which, in fact, beat a full house.

"I think we need to be careful."


	8. Author's Memo

Hello everyone!

Sorry this isn't a chapter update, but I felt the need to say a few things:

First, thank you so much for following this story, especially if you have been doing so since it started! I know I'm horribly behind on updates, but it really means a lot whenever I see that someone new has added this to his or her Story Alert.

Second, yes, this fanfic is still alive. The updates have sadly been few and far in between, but I am still working on the story. There are a couple of reasons for my tardiness, chief among them being that the original plotline started looking stupid about six months ago, necessitating a reworking of not only the currently in-progress chapter, but the entire storyline as well. Other reasons include work, school (my college graduation has already been delayed by a year), and other personal problems. Also, though I'm not sure how much it shows, I'm very obsessive about content – a single paragraph can take hours to write and days to revise before ultimately being chucked out.

Third – and I understand this is begging, but bear with me – I could really use some input on which characters seem interesting, what you think is going to happen, etc. I don't like it when authors beg for reviews, but it really does help when I receive criticism or at least fan theories for works-in-progress. By this point I'm writing more for those few who still have my screen name under Favorite Authors than for myself, so I would love to hear your thoughts. I'm not promising to incorporate any ideas, but it would speed things up if I knew what worked and what didn't. You can contact me by PM here on , or hit me up on Formspring at /mruncreative (yeah, I know I missed that bandwagon, but that's something I do quite often).

Finally, I hereby promise an update by the end of January, and another one by April. Mostly I'm doing this to force myself to work harder, but I've also been feeling kind of guilty that I'm taking so long, given that my sister finished her Secret Garden fic in three years and I'm barely a quarter done in four! (Note: don't ask what her fanfic was called, because I don't remember it and never knew her screen name on . Also, you might read it and think it better than mine, which would kind of make me sad but not really but yes but ANYWAY MOVING ON NOW).

So again, thanks for sticking around thus far. This and my Assassin's Creed fic are my main projects outside school and work, so don't worry about it being abandoned. I do realize that I could potentially die in an accident or something and leave everyone wondering why nothing's happening, but I will leave instructions for some people to follow should that occur. See how much you mean to me?!

Anyway, yeah, new chapter by the end of January, hopefully sooner! Thank you so much for reading.

Mister MacUpdatesTooRarely


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

"This is either a brilliant idea, or an extremely stupid one."

"That's how most geniuses do it."

"That's how idiots do it, too."

"At the risk of interrupting what seems to be a stunningly pointless yet oddly enlightening philosophical discussion," Aqua cut in, "the biscuit is buttered, repeat, the biscuit is buttered."

With little left to do but continue following Claire's ideas, the three were now staking out the row of houses Hailey had identified as being Ryan's neighborhood. Since all of the buildings had both front and rear entrances, the trio had spread out to cover all the possible avenues of approach. Aqua and Hailey were in the coppice between the homes and the beach – Aqua comfortably perched in the branches of a tree, Hailey once more lying prone underneath a pile of fallen leaves and branches. At Claire's suggestion, Hailey had brought along an olive-colored blanket and rubber mat from her mom's equipment stash; the latter was spread on the ground beneath her, while the former was draped over her to further hide her form. It was uncomfortably hot even with a battery-powered miniature fan, and Hailey's incessant complaining had provided most of the chatter over the short-range radios each of the girls carried. Even Aqua's pointed reminder that climbing trees in dresses wasn't exactly a cakewalk couldn't shut her up.

Claire's position was perhaps the riskiest: she sat on a bench in a small park across the street from the houses, pretending to read a book while casting occasional side glances at the row of buildings. She'd explained that she was probably the one Ryan would be least familiar with, which meant she had a better chance of observing him without being recognized. She was probably also the least likely to recognize him in turn, which was admittedly a problem, but she was still fairly confident that she could correctly guess if he came along.

Claire glanced around before reaching up to press the earpiece further in and commanding, "Say again, Bluebird?"

"I said, that's how idiots do it, too."

"Hailey, you're not Bluebird, you're Earthworm."

"Oh right. Sorry."

Claire sighed in mock exasperation and repeated, "Say again, Bluebird."

Aqua laughed before replying, "Tabby Cat, I say again, the biscuit is buttered."

"You fell out of the tree?" Hailey asked, confused.

"No, it means I've found the right house."

"I thought that was, 'The peaches have been creamed'."

There was a brief, awkward silence before Aqua said, "I don't think that's actually one of the codes we agreed on."

"Really? Why does it sound like one?"

"I think you're thinking of, 'The cream has spoiled.'"

"What does that one mean?"

"It means a snake got into your –"

"Bluebird, confirm that the biscuit is buttered," Claire interrupted. "I say again, confirm that biscuit is buttered, and identify the brand."

"Okay, what in the name of Niffenegger – "

"She's asking which house," Aqua explained before telling Claire, "Tabby Cat, it's the second house from my left. Green walls, gray roof. Windows and back door are white, might be different in front."

Claire scanned the houses before her gaze settled on the house Aqua was indicating. The windows _were _white in front as well, as was the front door. There was nothing in the way of a clue as to who owned it, though – there wasn't even a number or a mailbox. She hit the button on the radio and asked, "How do you know this is the one?"

"Aren't you supposed to say 'Paint the popcorn', or someth – "

"Tabby Cat, there's a very familiar pair of boots hanging in the hall."

"Copy that, Bluebird. I'll take your word for it." She didn't have much of a choice; it occurred to Claire that she had never actually seen Ryan in person, although both Hailey and Aqua had given her a description that included Ryan's penchant for beach-inappropriate footwear. More amazing was that even in the age of the all-knowing Internet, none of the girls had been able to find a picture of him online. Typing his name into Google returned over forty million results, and none of the links they'd examined led to the right person. Claire was someone who liked having a fair idea of the situation before taking any significant action, so the lack of hard information about Ryan was frustrating. It was why she'd finally decided to start being aggressive about their intelligence-gathering.

Claire clicked the radio and commanded, "Earthworm, acquire a visual on Bluebird's biscuit."

There was a brief pause before Hailey asked, "That means look at what Aqua's looking at, right?"

Claire stifled a laugh as she replied, "Affirmative Earthworm. Confirm that you have a visual."

"Bluebird, this is Earthworm, confirming visual."

"Earthworm, reheat the biscuit."

"I don't remember what that means."

"It means, do you think it's the right house?"

Hailey fell silent, presumably examining the building in question. Claire wasn't sure how Hailey could actually confirm or contradict Aqua's identification, but she would just have to trust her. Among the three girls, Hailey was the one who knew Ryan the best – though that still wasn't saying much – and so hers would be the final word on whether they could go to the next part of the plan.

"Bluebird, this is Earthworm. The biscuit's hot, and I'm getting hungry."

"Copy that, Earthworm," Claire said over Aqua's laughter. "And now I'm regretting my choice of code words. Moving on; Phase One of Operation: Minestrone is complete. Break out the notebooks and pens; we're proceeding to Phase Two." The first part of their little mission had been simply to identify Ryan's house – or at least which one was most likely to be his. Now they would be taking notes on everything about the house and what they could see through the windows, however seemingly insignificant. It would all make for an interesting analysis session later on.

Claire pulled a pencil from her messenger bag and turned slightly so she was facing the house at an oblique angle. The book she'd been pretending to read was actually a particularly thick diary that she now began to fill with details. She noted the house's position, color scheme – anything and everything about it, including the lack of a house number. There _was _a brass mail slot about a quarter of the way up the door, but it wasn't really anything special either.

_What happened to the days when people had their names on the mailboxes? _she wondered as she continued writing.

"Tabby Cat, this is Bluebird, we've got a salmon in the river." Claire's hand froze.

"Okay, that doesn't even sound remotely familiar. What – "

"Hailey, shut up," Claire interrupted. "Bluebird, confirm."

"She's coming up the path from the beach," Aqua replied.

"Oh right, it means Jade is coming," Hailey rejoined. "I see her too."

"Is she alone?"

"Oddly enough, yes. Wearing the same clothes, too."

"That's weird. Where the heck is Ryan?"

"About two feet to your right."

Claire almost managed to turn all the way around before a hand was clapped over her mouth to silence her scream.

* * *

"Tabby Cat, the salmon's up the fall, what do we do?"

Jade was almost at the door of what was definitely Ryan's house. She didn't seem to have noticed them, but that didn't mean she didn't know they were there.

As the mermaid fumbled in her messenger bag, probably for the key to the door, Hailey's mind raced as she tried to think of what to do. Her first instinct was to break cover and tackle Jade so she could demand answers. That was definitely not a good idea, and it was quickly squashed as Hailey tried to think of something else.

Meanwhile, Aqua continued to pester Claire over the radio. "Tabby Cat, come in Tabby Cat."

"She's thinking. Give her a minute."

"She doesn't need that much time – she isn't you."

"Oh shut up." Jade seemed to have found the key and was in the process of unlocking the back door. Hailey knew that if they were going to do anything, they had minutes – maybe seconds – to act. She decided that Claire was taking too long and joined Aqua's pestering; "Tabby Cat, this is Bug – Earthworm, I mean. What's the game plan? She's about to go inside." The door was open; it was now or never. "Tabby Cat, I can still jump her."

"She's not answering, Hailey."

"Screw it," Hailey muttered as she pushed herself into a sprinter's starting stance. "I'm going fo—"

"Earthworm, this is Tabby Cat; cancel that right now. Repeat, Earthworm, do _not _move."

Hailey froze in place, halfway through the motion of breaking cover and tackling Jade. It meant the mermaid had time to disappear into Ryan's house, shutting the door behind her.

Aqua came back on the radio: "Tabby Cat, what's going on?"

After another uncharacteristically long silence – though it was still markedly shorter – Claire answered, "Earthworm, Bluebird, abandon positions and rendezvous at Mother Tree in thirty minutes. Confirm."

Hailey finally rejoined the conversation; "Fifteen minutes? My house is barely a five-minute walk from here, Claire."

Her friend acted as though she hadn't heard; "Repeat, abandon posts and rendezvous at Mother Tree in half an hour. Confirm, Bluebird and Earthworm."

"Copy that, Tabby Cat," was Aqua's unemotional response. Left with few other options, Hailey sighed and echoed Aqua's confirmation..

Once she and Aqua had met up on the beach, Hailey asked the mermaid, "Are we seriously just going to head back to the house and ignore that distinctly un-Claire-like order?"

"No," Aqua replied. "We're going to go over to her and get some answers."

* * *

"Calm down and listen up, Claire."

Claire was too terrified to even wonder why he knew her name. If his arm hadn't been pinning her against the bench, she would have already made a break for it. _He's a lot stronger than he looks. That, or I'm a lot weaker than I thought_. Funny thoughts for the moment, but they stuck in her head.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Ryan – it had to be Ryan – continued. He was a lot better-looking than Hailey had implied, which was weird – Hailey had a tendency to_ exaggerate_ that sort of thing. _Funny thoughts again_. "I just want to talk. So here's what's going to happen: I'm going to release you. When I do, you're going to tell Hailey and Aquamarine to get out of whatever holes you stuck them in, go back to Hailey's place, and wait for you there. Got it?"

Though she was still on the verge of hyperventilating, Claire nodded as best she could. A half-smile tugged at Ryan's mouth as he took his hand off her mouth and let her go. Without taking her eyes off him, Claire pressed the 'Talk' button on her radio and ordered Hailey to stop whatever stupid idea she was about to carry out. Instead of responding to her friend's protests, Claire simply repeated what Ryan had told her. When she finished giving the two Ryan's instructions, Ryan reached over and plucked the bead from her ear.

"They're going to come looking for me," she told him, trying not to seem as scared as she was. He wasn't even supposed to know what she looked like, and yet here he was busting their entire operation with the ease of a practiced spy. What else did he know?

"Probably," he answered calmly, "which is why we're going to go for a walk. There's a cheap little eatery about five minutes from here. Great shrimp. I figure you're not allergic to seafood, given that you live on the Tampa waterfront," he added as he stood up.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what we –"

"This is the plan. We're going to buy food, eat it, and have a chat. It's not a terribly complicated process. You want your answers, you play along. You decide they're not important, stay right here and pass up on some _really _good scampi."

Claire took a deep breath before gathering her things and getting up. He obviously wasn't going to start explaining before he wanted to – or before he got some food in his stomach. She was willing – if not entirely able – to put aside her paranoia for the time being. She had a truckload of questions, and Ryan was probably the only one who could answer them.

* * *

By the time Hailey and Aqua got to where Claire was supposed to have been, there was no trace of her, or what had happened to make her change the plan.

"She's not here."

"I never would've figured that out."

"Shut up, tuna-hugger."

"That's not even an insult. It's like calling someone a puppy-petter."

Hailey ignored the comeback and started examining the benches. She didn't know which one Claire had sat on, and she could only hope there was some kind of clue as to where she'd gone.

Meanwhile, Aqua got down on one knee and checked the dirt around the benches. The park's walkways were paved concrete, but there had to be something…

_There_.

"Hailey!"

"What?"

"Get your blubbery butt over here."

"You could just say, 'Hey Hailey, come here.'"

"Where's the fun in that?"

Nonetheless, Hailey appeared at Aqua's side in a second. "What've you got?" she asked, taking a knee. In response, Aqua simply pointed at the depressions in the dirt – depressions with roughly the same dimensions as a medium-sized boot.

Aqua already had a good idea whose boot it was, but it was Hailey who voiced it aloud: "Ryan."

"He wouldn't have killed her, would he?"

"No," Hailey answered, now searching the pavement for traces of dirt to track, "but that doesn't mean we don't need to worry about where he might have taken her."

The mermaid had gone on to examine the bench in front of where she'd seen the footprints. There was a small collection of dirt on one side – had he sat down? If so, it was probably because Claire had been there first. Ryan could have said something to her – it explained why she'd been off the radio for so long.

A question formed in Aqua's mind, and she decided to voice it out; "Hailey, would Ryan have any way of knowing what Claire looks like?"

"I'm almost a hundred percent sure he's never seen the two of us together, but it's not impossible that he's seen a picture of her online or something," Hailey replied after a moment's consideration. "We just didn't think he was the kind of person who would have bothered looking up anyone with any connection to me until – "

"Until you learned about his fishy femme."

"Right." Hailey straightened up, catching Aqua's attention. "They went this way," she said, nodding in a direction before breaking into a light jog.

Aqua caught up to her before asking, "What about our stuff?"

Hailey froze mid-stride before slapping one hand to her forehead. "Oh, how I wish I had a clean-up crew," she groaned.

"Tell you what," Aqua suggested, "you go back and get the stuff while I track them down."

"Aqua, you're tall, pretty, and you've got blue in your hair. You are _way _too conspicuous," Hailey told her. "_You _go get the stuff, and _I_ will do the tracking."

"He knows your face too well," Aqua countered. "_You _go get – "

Hailey suddenly threw her hand over Aqua's mouth, cutting off her reply. "I've got an idea, but I'm gonna need your clothes."

* * *

The restaurant had a nice home-style feel to it, and the food was surprisingly cheap. Aside from ordering, Ryan didn't speak until the first dish – a sizeable bowl of grilled shrimp – arrived. He took one by the tail and bit into it with relish, then nodded towards the bowl, indicating Claire should follow his lead. She did so with no small amount of caution – she was still pretty nervous about the whole situation – but the shrimp was as good as advertised.

Ryan polished off nearly a dozen of the crustaceans before finally getting to the matter at hand. "First off," he began, "good call on the surveillance thing. Didn't see Aqua, not sure I saw Hailey, and I wouldn't have recognized you if Hailey had been smarter than to use her Tumblr screen name as her Facebook password. By the way, you might want to tell her to tone down the Christian Bale stuff – it's right on the border between fangirl-ism and sheer disturbing obsession, although I do admit that sometimes I have no idea what the difference is."

When Claire didn't respond, Ryan shrugged and continued, "Now, since the novelty of this cloak-and-dagger stuff has pretty much worn off, I think it's time you and I straightened some things out. It seems to me that the simplest way for us to reach some kind of understanding is for me to answer whatever questions you may have, at least where this is concerned." He paused to take a drink of water, then went on, "I do reserve the right to refuse to answer when I think the information you want is irrelevant, so keep that in mind." He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms across his chest. "Shoot."

A thousand things ran through Claire's mind, and she fought to identify the question that would start her down the right track. She was actually tempted to ask Ryan where he expected her to begin, but she had a feeling he wouldn't answer. Finally, she decided to start things off slowly; "When did you find out about Aqua?"

"A year ago. Right around this time, actually." He refrained from volunteering anything that didn't technically answer her question – which meant she'd have to work to draw some more out of him.

"How'd you know she was a mermaid?"

"Well, if the highlights and starfish earrings hadn't given it away, the fact that she sprouts a tail when her feet get wet probably would've done the trick." Claire was about to challenge his vagueness when she realized he was joking; instead, she raised one eyebrow to show she wasn't amused. Ryan apparently was, though: he chuckled and downed some more water before explaining, "It was in a restaurant about fifteen minutes from Hailey's place – the Sea Shack. I was in there having lunch when I saw Hailey Rogers walk in with a tall, leggy, very good-looking girl I knew I'd never seen before."

"Aqua does tend to draw attention," Claire remarked.

"She does," Ryan nodded. "'Course, the fact that I didn't recognize her didn't really mean anything on its own. I would have brushed her off as just an old friend of Hailey's from the States and ignored her if not – "

"Wait," Claire interrupted. "Hailey walks in with some super-hot chick and your decision is to _ignore _them? You weren't even the_ least_ bit interested?"

"Number one, I was already taken. Number two, if I'd gone up to them and introduced myself, Hailey would've thought I was some kind of girl-chasing hornball – which in itself wouldn't have been the worst thing, except that she also would have assumed I thought she was a fugly, given that I'd never paid her much attention before."

"So you don't think Hailey's unattractive?"

"Do you want to hear my story, or do you want to gossip?"

Claire snorted; she hadn't even realized she'd asked the question. She took her drink in one hand and gestured for Ryan to continue with the other.

Ryan shook his head in amusement. "Girls. Anyway, the earrings, hair, and fingernails were already kind of weird, but not a big deal. I was ready to pass her off as some random hot chick until she dumped about half a shaker of salt in her water."

Three things jumped out at Claire from Ryan's story. First, he had already been capable of identifying mermaids a year ago: the hair, the fingernails, and the salt were dead giveaways, but only to someone who knew enough to put all of them together. Anyone else would just think the girl was some kind of weirdo.

This meant that, secondly, he had – perhaps inadvertently, though somehow she doubted it – given a time reference for his relationship with Jade; the odds that he'd been referring to anyone else were just too low. Claire didn't know how long Ryan had lived in Australia, and Hailey had never tried very hard to find out. It was something Claire intended to bring up the next time she saw her friend.

Third, if Ryan had known Aqua was a mermaid for a year, why had he only bothered telling Jade a few days ago? Why had he kept that information from her, and why was he only starting with the espionage game now?

Ryan seemed to have finished talking for the moment, so Claire decided to put the question to him.

"I figured you'd ask that," he said approvingly – was this some kind of test? "A year ago," he continued, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the frown that flashed across Claire's face, "Hailey was either too lazy or too homesick to try to get to know anyone, let alone me." _Knowing Hailey, it was probably both_, Claire mused silently, letting nothing else show on her face as Ryan went on. "She wasn't looking in to me, so I didn't care what she did as long as she didn't go around telling people her friend was half-fish."

"Waitwaitwait," Claire burst out, having had a sudden epiphany. She paused as the lone waiter – who seemed to disappear when he wasn't attending to a customer – set a plate of assorted grilled fish and vegetables before each diner. When he'd vanished back into the kitchens, Claire fixed Ryan with an incredulous look. "Is all of this cloak and dagger stuff because you don't trust Hailey with a secret she had before she even knew you _existed_?!"

At first it seemed as if Ryan hadn't heard her; he calmly cut himself a piece of grilled tuna and swabbed it around in the pepper-specked oil underneath the fish before popping it in his mouth and chewing serenely. An annoyed Claire was about to repeat her query when – in a maddeningly calm voice – he simply said, "Yes."

* * *

It took almost all of Hailey's self-control to keep from picking at her borrowed dress. She knew she wasn't exactly svelte, but it was still fairly ridiculous that a summer dress could feel so suffocating.

The disguise was probably working, though. Ryan didn't seem to have noticed her – and interestingly, neither had Claire. It was possible that they were both just too distracted to bother with someone sitting across the street, but it could also be that the dress and ribbon-adorned sun hat – which Aqua had somehow produced when Hailey explained her plan – were simply so far out of Hailey's normal wardrobe that she simply didn't register as someone either of the objects of her attention would recognize, let alone know personally.

Unfortunately, from this distance Hailey had no idea what they were talking about, and she couldn't risk going any closer even if there'd been anywhere she could use as a listening post. All she could do was be ready to call the police – or at least Aqua, who was waiting back at the Rogers house – if it looked like Ryan was about to try something less than desirable. It was yet another one of her little plans that had been stonewalled by a lack of foresight, though admittedly the original version – braining Ryan with a rock and dragging Claire away – would probably have failed spectacularly on its own merits, or lack thereof.

Her stomach began to grumble as the pair were served what looked like the main course. She wasn't sure whether she was actually hungry or just envious of what looked like a good lunch. Either way, it was a distraction she definitely didn't need.

_Why'd you have to grab Claire off the air? _she wondered. _And what are you two talking about?_

* * *

"It's nothing personal," Ryan explained nonchalantly as Claire tried to control her outrage. "There're loads of people I don't trust; this just happens to be a lot bigger than most things."

"Hailey and I can keep a secret," Claire stated firmly before adding, "Probably a little better than you." She hadn't meant to sound so snippy, but she was genuinely upset that Ryan had made such a judgment call on two people he barely knew.

"Debatable," Ryan said with a wave of his hand. "_Very _debatable. You're smart, but either you haven't read enough spy novels or you've been reading the wrong ones. What's important is that you and Hailey realize exactly how big a secret this is, and why it needs to stay that way."

Claire raised an eyebrow. "I think we know how big this is, Ryan."

"Do you?"

She had her mouth open to give a sassy comeback when a thought hit her: did she, really?

Ryan waited a while longer. When he was sure she didn't have an answer, he continued: "Humans aren't the most trustworthy species, but they're probably one of the most insensitive and definitely one of the most violent. If word somehow got around that a bunch of kids in Australia were hanging around with a new species, Aqua and Jade would find themselves in a science lab with a bunch of nutjobs poking around their insides."

Claire shook her head. "No, people wouldn't – "

"Why doesn't Hailey's mom know about Aqua, then?"

The question caught Claire off-guard, throwing her completely off-track. She managed a couple of half-formed words before finally managing to say, "What makes you think she doesn't?"

"Actually, that was a hunch. You just confirmed it."

_Oh come on. _

"Now, if Hailey's mom doesn't know, I'm guessing your grandparents don't know either."

Claire didn't even remark on his knowledge of whom her legal guardians were. Instead, she asked, "And why does it matter whether they know?"

"It would make your lives a lot easier, which you probably know," Ryan told her. "Now, your grandparents probably aren't an issue, but Hailey's mom is a scientist – which means you haven't told her because you don't want to deal with her questions. Heck, maybe deep down you're just as scared as I am that she'll want Aqua shipped off to the nearest marine laboratory."

Claire was stunned into silence. She wanted to refute Ryan's words, but she couldn't figure out how to do it without being defensive. Worse, she couldn't completely deny his statements herself. Why _didn't _they trust Mrs. Rogers with the truth? Why did they just keep playing this ridiculously annoying game of pretend?

As much as she wanted to deny it, Ryan was probably right.

"Humans aren't ready to know about mermaids," Ryan declared. "They weren't ready last time, and if anything they're even less ready now, with the whole 'superior species' thing they – "

"Wait," Claire interrupted, having just caught onto something in his sentence. "What do you mean by 'last time'?"

"Ask Aqua. She can tell you better than I can." Ryan had somehow finished his food while talking, and now he stood, apparently ready to leave. "The spy game's over, Claire. If we keep this up, someone's going to start paying us attention that we don't want. Not for Jade, not for Aquamarine." He pulled out his wallet and counted out some bills. "There's too much at stake for either of us." Ryan dropped the money on the table and started off down the street, leaving Claire lost in thought.

* * *

Hailey was tempted to try following Ryan, but she decided against it. Instead, she folded up the newspaper she'd been reading and jogged over to her friend. Claire didn't seem to have noticed her, so she grabbed her by the shoulder. "Claire!"

Her friend almost jumped out of her seat. "Hailey?! Where'd you come from?" Her eyes fell on the dress. "Why are you wearing Aqua's dress?"

Hailey pulled Ryan's vacated chair over and sat down as she said, "Never mind that. What'd he say? What'd you two talk about? Are you going to finish that fish?"

Claire rolled her eyes, but she still seemed somehow distant.

"Claire? What's up?"

After a few minutes, Claire fixed Hailey with a surprisingly dark look. "We need to talk to Aqua."


End file.
